So I posted back in the fall about my raised garden experiment. Here's the original thread with pics: http://www.projectwedding.com/post/list/finally-11

Here it was in late February:

Well, fast forward a bit, and here it is now:

 Crazy zucchini!! Behind that is a bunch of onion and garlic plants.

 This is the biggest head of lettuce I've ever seen, and it's still completely dwarfed by the zucchini!

My tomato plants. These were tiny seedlings when I put them in a month ago, but they're really thriving. In the forground, you can see a head of Boston lettuce that's ready to harvest, and a small watermelon plant (I planted a small seedling 2 weeks ago, so it's tripled in size).

 This little strawberry plant produces the sweetest berries I've ever eaten! You can see my bell pepper plant right behind it.

I put a thick layer of mulch down, and it's really helping with water conservation. I've been fertilizing every third weekend with a diluted organic fish emulsion. The plants really perk up when I use this! I've also tossed some organic compost in around the plants once, and they seemed to respond well to that!

what an amazing job! I have an herb garden in my back yard. I had a lot of spinach, basil, dill and agurula in winter. Right now I have lots of flat leaf parsley, sage and onions. I planted more basil (from seeds), but it has not come up out yet. Had seeded mint, oregano, thyme and rosemary. Never grew :( I also had some radishes, but bugs got most of it previous time. I have some new coming up, will see what happens.

And our house came with a peach tree. It is full of peaches now. Should be harvesting in a few weeks :) 

I would love to have a box planter, but it takes some much time to care for all that. Herbs just grow on their own... 

Oh I'm so jealous!  I want a boxed garden just like yours!!  With... food growing in it too!!  It must be so encouraging to see something grow from last year!  Congrats!!   You're such an inspiration. 

OMG!!! That looks amazing!!! WOW!! I am so impressed!!!

Thanks! It's so gratifying to eat your own produce - I love it!

I should mention that all the lettuce you see in the first picture, with the exception of 2 heads that are still there, got huge; so I harvested them and gave them away to different people, so I had more room in the garden to plant all the other stuff you see now. I've gotten lots of good feedback about the lettuce, so I'm looking forward to harvesting the other veggies!

I've planted in a way so that as one plant is just getting started, the one next to it is almost ready to harvest. This is how I've maximized the space in my small (4'x8') bed. For instance, the remaining lettuce and the zucchini only overlapped for about a month and now it's time to take the lettuce out and give the zucchini roots room to grow. :)

Nice!  Great advice too.  I'm going to go bug Matt to build me one.  I heart salad to the extreme!

I built it myself in about an hour, and had DH help me carry it into our yard and put it in place! You totally can too! Just get the wood pre-cut at Lowes or HD.

I got 12 four-foot lengths of 2"x12", two eight-foot lengths of 2"x6" (for the cap rail on each long side). I bought several straight steel straps and a bunch of steel L-brackets to assemble it, and galvanized wood screws. Just don't use pressure-treated lumber - yucky chemicals!

Then I lined the bottom (which was just grass) with chicken wire to keep pests out of my roots, and lined the bottom and the sides with landscape fabric to keep the weeds from getting into my good topsoil.

wow... that sounds so easy!  Did you take pics as you assembled? (I'm extremely visual!)  I'm not kidding when I say I'll be building one in a few weeks.  :)  So excited!!!

Sorry to say, I didn't take pics (I'm horrible about that kind of thing!). :( I just went by what I read on lots of different tutorials I googled (I modified it a bit to suit my needs). It was seriously very easy though, just a little big to move around myself once I got it assembled.

So I printed of schematics for a raised box garden that Matt hasn't found time to make for me.  No biggie... I know I can do it myself.  I called him to tell him I'll build it this weekend and will need his help putting it in the yard.. lol  He said no.  That he wants to do it together.  cute...but, my lettuce needs room now!! 

So we compromised... I can go by the wood and supplies and when he gets back in town we'll build it next week.  :)