Raccons and Garden Beds

Well I had quite the weekend. First I would like to thank the Garden Gods for giving me some great weather to work in on Saturday and Sunday. Second I would like to ask them what do I need to atone for? What was it that was so bad that they sent a raccon, a flea infested one I might add, to live not more than 12 feet from my garden beds?

Well at the moment I can't think what it might have been but needless to say I need to figure out a way to remove my bandit faced friend from my backyard and into some open land space. I have dealt with them before and a live trap with some simple garbage like food seems to work the best. Also if you can get your local village or town to remove the pest for you. Raccons are disease carriers and many towns and cities have ordinances to remove them due to this reason.

I thought about this scraggly guy a lot this weekend as I worked out side to extend our raised beds. This project by the way seemed much simpler in the planning stages than it actually turned out. Suggestion to readers, fully plan your garden and do it that way the first time and don't try to add on. And if you do decide to extend your garden be ready for some tough screws and a bit of frustration. Of course the idea to add on was all mine for Naomi built the orginal raised beds all by herself and thought they were more than big enough. Then I come along with some "great plans", that were surely laid out by some mice and men, and altered it just a bit. This alteration will hopefully help us to become a little more sustainable.

First we had to remove the fence from around the garden plot. Then we began to change out the connectors that held the side boards together. This is where my troubles began. For you see four years of being under the dirt and quite wet made the boards swell and the screws rust. Making it nigh impossible to remove all of them with a screwdriver. I next tried a bit of finesse that got me exactly nowhere. After a few minutes of stomping, muttering, and humphing. I decided to rely on a bit of force and a trusty hammer to pry these screws away from the boards. This of course did bend the connectors a little but not beyond reuse. Luckily this side adventure did not set us back to far time wise, since I was still able to change out the corner connectors and to add on the new side boards to make our two new raised beds. These new beds will give me room to grow onions, potatoes, and some more musk mellons. Yum!

Well on the schedule for this week, fill in the beds with some wonderful compost from the backyard, some mushroom compost (a must have in my opinnion), and lastly a bit of chicken manure and coffee grounds. This delightful mixture is just what the farmer ordered for some healthy growing plants.

For anyone interested I ordered my raised bed kit from Gardeners Supply Company. I used the raised bed corners and in-line connectors. The corners cost 16.95 for a set of two and the in-line connectors cost 22.95 for a set of two. For the extension I had 4 corners and 4 in-line connectors. Costing me about $80 for all of them. I also bought untreated cedar which cost about another $80. Making the cost of the extension around $160. In my opinnion a great deal for some healthy fresh vegetables.