I started this post a few months ago and I’m just now finishing it! 🙂 Better late than never?

The summer seems to be flying by and we’re making more progress on our new raised bed garden. Most recently, we’ve demolished the cinder block wall (which was falling in) and expanded the garden area a bit. Here is a quick summary in photos:

Grandma’s exterior basement entry had a walk-out lined in cinder blocks. It was falling in.

Bye bye ugly wall!

The raised bed garden area is just to the west of the old cinder block wall.

Concrete forms for our new exterior basement entry.

Concrete set and tar coated. Painting the new entry doors.

Blaine and our contractor, Daniel.

Here is a fun “before” pic when we purchased the house.

It took at least three dump truck loads of dirt to fill back the walk-out’s void. We wanted to follow the slope of the existing hill that our house sits on.

Blaine installing our new hatch doors to the basement.

All done and seeded with grass.

With the cinder block wall gone and the yard now backfilled, we expanded the garden area a bit more to the east. We added four more Veradek Corten Steel planters.

The raised bed garden still needs pea gravel added and fenced in, which we might get to next spring. 🙂 The raised bed garden worked great for herbs, lettuce, strawberries, okra and peppers. Not so great for corn (which blew over), squash, potatoes, and tomatoes. We’ll start an in-ground garden next year for those type of veggies.