Raised garden beds – kits and instructions

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collection of colorful vegetables

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  • Seeds planted: The fun begins

    New collards in demo bed
    Collard greens in the demonstration bed at Whole Earth Center

    I’ve just been able to enjoy one of my favorite beginnings: filling a raised garden bed with rich soil and putting in the first plants. Fluffy, dark, weedless, hand-scoopable dirt easily moved aside to accept four young collard plants and a row of sugar snap pea sprouts.

    I’m referring to the demonstration bed over at Whole Earth Center where the cedar box is now filled to the top with the #2 top soil/compost mix from Belle Mead Co-op. My younger daughter Ruth and I put down some landscape fabric (so that the whole thing can be removed at the end of the season) and shoveled the dirt out of a pickup truck (thanks to our friend Steve Hiltner at Princeton Nature Notes for use of his truck).

    The collards I grabbed on impulse while picking up the dirt at Belle Mead. The peas had been sprouting in a damp paper towel for about five days and had nice tendrils poking out by the time we dropped them into the dirt. They’re the “Super Sugar Snap” variety from Renee’s Garden.

    There’s plenty more space to fill: What would you like us to plant next??

     

     

  • Now taking orders!

    Spring is here and we’re open for business!Display bed at Whole Earth

    The Whole Earth Center and Bountiful Boxes are supporting Princeton’s Lawn-to-Food movement by offering wood kits to make raised garden beds. The idea is to encourage more backyard or frontyard gardening. We see four huge benefits:

    • Providing an inexpensive source of delicious, fresh vegetables. Some of our favorites — snow peas crisp and sweet and still wet with a cool morning dew; crunchy, tender green beans casually handed to visiting friend; sun-warm heirloom tomatoes —  could not be bought at any price.
    • Building community around the joy of gardening — trading bounty, advice, setbacks, triumphs and home-grown meals.
    • Lowering our environmental impact by replacing 32 square feet (the size of one of our 4×8 beds) of fertilizer-hogging grass with a piece of sustainable, edible landscaping.
    • Supporting garden-based education: Bountiful Boxes is donating 5% of each sale to the Princeton School Gardens Cooperative.

    To see the kits we’re offering, look at our boxes page. Currently, all orders for garden beds are being handled by the Whole Earth Center in Princeton — please stop by or call (609-924-7429) to place your order. Or email us with questions.

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