Life is good in a raised bed

Living on the outskirts of Atlanta, Georgia can mean only one thing to someone who's serious about wanting to have a garden; it ain't happening without raised beds!

Georgia's red clay is infamous for being hard to grow things in but until we moved there in '92, I had no idea. But that was just the start... our town is not far from Atlanta's famous Stone Mountain, a granite "monadnock" rising straight up 825 feet from the surrounding land, where images of confederate war hero's are carved in the rock face. This thing bulges up out of the ground like a huge zit on the face of the earth.

I think that this rock formation extends literally for miles around and our that house is build on part of this extension. The developers of our subdivision had to blast the rock just to get places where the foundations of houses could be poured. I discovered the extent of the rock during one of the first springs at our home when my dear wife wanted a rose bush planted in the back yard near the patio.

No big chore, right? Just dig a hole, put in the rose bush (a Mr. Lincoln) and cover the thing up. I finally got the rose settled in after an hour bout with Stone Mountain using my sledge hammer, pry bar and a pick axe.

So, when we decided to put in a garden... it was all about getting some great soil (kudos to Luxury Landscape and their specially formulated plant mix), setting up a raised bed and not fighting the clay or the rock.

We currently have two parallel raised beds (4x8 feet and 6 feet apart) and we use large smart pots where we grow our veggies.

Life is good in a raised bed!