Cinder Block Veggie Garden

So I have been growing tomatoes and various veggie plants from seed for about 4 years now as seen in this post. This is the first year that I am able to plant them in a garden bed instead of containers and I was so excited.  I knew that I wanted to go for a raised bed of some sort because the soil here in the Red River Valley is mostly clay and is very dense.  This makes it hard for roots to spread unless you do a really amazing job of tilling.  

There were several options for raised beds but the option that I chose in the end was the cheapest and the most weather resistant.  I chose to make a raised bed with cinder blocks.  The blocks were only 96 cents but getting them home was an adventure.  We do not own a truck so we loaded them all into the back of my husband's Dodge Avenger.  We looked like we had tricked our car out to be a low-rider and we had to drive very slow.  Thankfully we made it home without destroying the car.

I laid the blocks down 2 deep and eight wide.  The rectangular shape helps with being able to reach all the plants for maintenance and harvest.  Then I went to work getting rid of the grass and I also broke up the soil a little bit.

After that I laid down a layer of newspaper to stifle the grass and weeds that still might have roots in this area.  Then I put the topsoil in and rake it so that it was even.  I figured out how much topsoil I needed by calculating the cubic feet or volume of the bed.

Finally I planted the tomato plants.  My pepper plants went in the containers that I used for both peppers and tomatoes last year.  I also purchased a couple of cucumber plants and planted seeds for squash and green beans.  Squash and green beans are fast growers so they are coming up nicely already.

Another nice thing about the cinder blocks is the extra planting space in each nook of the cinder blocks.  I decided to plant a few of these with basil, rosemary, cilantro, and mint.

I hope to be eating a lot of delicious veggies later this summer!