Steph It’s most economical to plant your raised garden bed using seeds.
When it comes to my vegetable garden that I grow in raised beds I greatly prefer growing my veggies from seed. I currently have 96 square feet of beds and it would be ridiculous to try to do that from expensive seedlings because of how you can pack things into a raised bed. I do everything from seed, with the exception of some tomatoes and the occasional herb that I don’t have a seed packet for.
Waiting on my veggies to peek out of the ground seems like it takes forever.
But it really doesn’t. You can do this! If you have patience and don’t mind your garden being slightly delayed I’d just seed directly into the boxes. If you want to be out planting seedlings immediately after the date of last average frost rolls around, you should consider planting the seeds indoors in preparation for the garden. Because I don’t have a good space in my house for that right now, I just pop them in the ground.
To help you along, I’ll be posting my weekly progress shots. Hopefully this will help other people get started growing their own food.
Raised Bed #1 – My Tomato Raised Garden Bed
Here is what is planted inside each area. I am also companion planting by throwing herbs in and around the tomatoes.
This is my raised tomato garden bed after one week. I used seedlings for this bed with the exception of my Black Plum tomatoes in the front of the bed.
This is the raised tomato bed after two weeks. I have several blossoms and a few tomatoes starting. It’s time to trellis. I’m still figuring out what trellis I want to use this year.
This raised garden bed has zucchini, cucumbers and okra. Here is the grid showing what is in each box. I will probably add a trellis for this box for the zucchini and maybe the cukes.
This is my second raised garden bed after one week. This was all seeded a week prior to this picture. The zucchini seedlings emerged first. Seedlings have mostly all surfaced but some are too small to see well in the picture.
This is the raised zucchini, okra and cucumber bed after two weeks. The seedlings have emerged. We got hit with some cooler weather the last few days which seems to have slowed down the growth a tad.
Raised Bed #3 – Eggplant, Okra, Peppers, Cucumbers Raised Garden Bed
This bed has more cucumbers which is a summer favorite around here. I am also trying a second type of okra with red pods. I finished up this bed with a couple of eggplants and Anaheim chili peppers.
One week after planting the cucumber, okra, eggplant and pepper seeds the bed was well on the way. The seedlings were all very small at this point and hard to see in the picture.
My raised garden bed with cukes, okra, peppers and eggplants just two weeks after planting the seeds directly into the ground. Cucumbers are definitely taking off the fastest in this bed. I think I might have a weed growing in one of the pepper squares. I’m giving it a couple more days to see for sure before I pull it.
Raised Bed #4 – Lima Beans, Okra, Peas
This bed is my bean and pea raised garden bed. I have to be honest, I’ve never had good luck with beans or peas. This year I’m going to tackle this aspect and figure it out. I rounded out this bed with some Black Krim tomatoes (from seed) and more okra. We really love okra in this house and I’m worried we don’t have nearly enough.
Seedlings are emerging but they are very small after the end of the first week. Most of the lima beans are out of the dirt along with the okra. The peas are delayed a few days along with the tomatoes. I’m not concerned if everything isn’t out after a week. My first week we had some warmer weather so things sprung up pretty quickly. If your temps are cooler, it might take a bit longer.
There it goes! This bed really took off in the second week. It looks like my limas enjoyed the cooler temps we had this week. Unfortunately the rabbits also discovered my beans this week. I had to pop a little chicken wire fence around this bed because they were eating off my new growth as soon as it emerged.
My plants are now in their third week. It’s been cooler so things are going a bit slower. I waited until at least a week after our last frost this year. I finally planted May 15th when there were no more nights under the mid-40s forecast.
