When we bought our farm it came ready made for planting. We were blessed to have raised beds and a chicken coop ready to go. However, the beds were quite old and situated on top of grass (requiring lots of mowing and edging around them). Every gardener knows what a pain that can be.
Above: How the garden looked into 2025. It’s very pretty on camera, but the upkeep was difficult. It was always overgrown and swimming with weeds despite weekly weeding (not to mention moss).
The raised beds were tall but rather shallow (an optical illusion as they look deep due to their height). Given they were slightly raised off the ground, we had constant problems with critters making homes underneath. The wood was old and moss spores seemed to take over our soil with any moisture. The trellises were placed in a way that made harvesting and planting difficult. The original owners carved out a beautiful space that we are grateful to work from but it felt time for a re-design!
Above: Demo day in early March 2026. Taking out the old beds proved to be time consuming.
Above: The first new raised bed goes in as spring flowers began to bloom.
We tore every old bed out. We even tore out our grapes! I know this seems very sad but they didn’t taste particularly good, were not suitable for wine and overtook the garden quite quickly. We plan to plant new varieties elsewhere next season. Additionally the Dahila rows were moved to our lower yard to make more space for produce.
To avoid edging and mowing between beds we cleared all the grass and laid down landscaping fabric. Once the beds were built, we put down “crushed fine gravel”. I highly recommend crushed fine for walk ways and garden paths. It is gravel that has been ground down to tiny rock and powder, helping to drown out the sun. The fines have worked amazingly well for weed control around the beds. I’ve found it much more useful than other classic gravel, bark dust or wood chips. It also looks nice!
Above: Using landscaping fabric for weed control.
Above: Using “crushed fine” as ground cover on top of the fabric around the beds.
The final stage was adding a fence around the garden. I felt this added some much needed structure. It also helps keep our chickens out as they don’t like perching on the gothic peaks.
We were forced to plant as we built, making our garden later than usual this year (though I think it’s doing well). The project took 6 months to complete in total. On camera it may appear less lush than the original garden. However, being overgrown with weeds will definitely add unwanted lushness to a photo! I’m loving the new weed control and beauty of the gravel pathways.
Our final task will be adding garden gates which will be finished this coming weekend. I’m so pleased with the final design and proud of the planting we managed to pull off despite the set backs.
Supply Highlights:
Untreated Dimensional Cedar (best for beds you will grow food in). 4x4 posts, 2x10x8 for length, 2x10x4 width, stacked two high all the way around.
Crushed “fines” (gravel)
Landscaping Fabric (best deal is Costco)
8ft Gothic Fence panels (best deal was Lowe’s)
Every kind of tool and power tool you can imagine for demolition, cutting wood and construction. ;) Sorry friends, not my wheelhouse to list.
Soil (the most important part).
Most important tools according to my husband: Driver for screwing it all in, mitre saw for cutting the wood, tape measure for the measuring.
Tip: Be aware of leveling the space. We didn’t plan too well for that. We found work arounds that ended up meeting our needs fine -but do your research on that ahead of time!
My goal for the farm is more produce to share and sell, a proper cut and dried flower garden separate from my other beds, as well as expanding our offerings to consistent jams, butters and sourdough. Goats may even be on the horizon if I can convince my husband ;)
If you hung in for this entire blog post you must be an elder millennial or older…I salute your attention span. There are still some of us left! Thanks for visiting the Josephine Farm journal :)
