Yesterday, I gave you the reason that I am updating and drastically changing the square foot garden. Today I am going to share a couple of pictures of our progress. 

The best part of these three new beds is total cost was $0.  The tin was salvaged serval years ago from a car shed that my brother was tearing down. The wood and screws were from the previous square foot garden beds which are about half way removed. I also re used pavers from the previous bed.  I should be able to grow a total of 22 tomato plants and enough sweet potatoes to last us an entire year with just these three beds.  This finally picture is just to show where we are at curently.

Lots more work and cost to follow but for the first 2 days of actually work we are at zero cost!

This list is a little different as it is the reason that we are going to undertake the mass project of re-doing our square foot garden.  My goal is to use the same concept for square foot gardening just in a different way. The biggest difference will be that the garden boxes will not be on the ground instead they will be elevated.

1. Prevent dogs and cats in the neighborhood from using the boxes as a rest area. Even Rugar is really sneaky in this. I am sure that is part of the reason some of the plant last summer did not survive.
2. Expand the number of items that I am able to grow.  My plan is to reduce each box to a width of 2 feet. This will allow me to have easy access to both side and should provide an additional 50 square feet in the garden.
3. Place weed cloth under all the boxes and remove as much grass as possible. By raising the height of the beds this will prevent lots of grass from ended up in each garden bed. It feels like we have more weeds and grass in our current square foot beds than we do growing in the area around it.  Because we are reusing most of the dirt, we also can remove lots of the weeds that are growing at grown level as well.
4. Allow me to spend more time and energy in the garden without bending or sitting on the ground. This should be a huge benefit in year to come as the beds will be around waist height for me.
5. Expand and arrange the growing season and spaces better. We hope to add a small growing tunnel in the fall. But we will be able to have several different varieties of peppers and beads without the worry of cross pollination.