I haven’t always been interested in gardening-my mom use to laugh at me because I hated helping her dig in the dirt growing up. She’s always been into flowers and loves her some weeding (a rare trait to be sure!). When I became a vegetarian as an adult, I thought it would be ideal to grow my own food since I (theoretically) could. I had a container garden going for a while on the balcony of an apartment my husband and I lived in early on. Unfortunately, the Phoenix summer and potted vegetables aren’t really a good match. I could get my plants to fruit stage, but they would wither and die soon after. It was no surprise when I surrendered and put that idea on the back burner.
When we finally moved into our house and I had some land to work with, I quickly planned a garden and employed some less-than-eager family members to help pull out rock and build up a raised bed. When I say it was A LOT of work, this is truly an understatement. The area had been rocked over with not one, but three layers of river rock and weed sheeting, not to mention a fun layer of roof shingles and as an added bonus, a dingy rug. The prior owner was apparently hell bent on eliminating weeds. After that party, the only thing left was simply laying cinder block and adding four tons of dirt inside the new box. Easy , right? The end result:
raised garden bed
I can’t say that having a hard-earned garden area makes me any better of a gardener, but I do try. If you are into raised bed or container gardening, you might also enjoy these posts:
Follow my Green Thumb board on Pinterest! How does your garden grow? Let me know!
Posts you might like:
painted posies 
FYI unless you want Cilantro EVERYWHERE do not let it seed. Made that mistake and had cilantro take over my garden the next year.