Today saw the birth of the third garden box at our house! I was contemplating from the moment I woke up this morning whether I should make another box. This one is right next to the patio. It is 8 feet by 4 feet wide and is one foot deep.
What is in the box already? Well, those would be the green beans. I uprooted the green beans in the side garden where the newly planted corn was and managed to get the last six corn seedlings in that area – although the corn seedlings probably won't make it because they looked pretty sickly.
From the corn area, there were about 16 green bean plants that were transferred. So where did the rest come from? Well, the same day that we pulled up all the carrots out of the other box on the back driveway, I planted more green beans in there. On Friday we planted more corn in that box because none of the green beans had germinated at that point. Well, now about 30 of the 70 green beans germinated yesterday and today – and they were right next to the corn! I didn't want to just waste the plants – so I also transplanted those into the new box as well.
The new box will hold about 50 green beans if I planted them 10 inches apart in all directions. Some places say you can plant them six inches apart, but I'm giving them a bit more room because I've found that the more room you give them, the better they grow and the better harvest you get from one plant.
So far there are a total of 26 green beans in the new box. There are another 20 green beans that just broke the surface in the old carrot box. Once they start to put on at least a leaf, I will also dig those up and transplant to the new box. That will then only leave room for four more green beans – already! Pretty amazing how I built the box and it is going to be full a day later.
The box cost about $35 to built – if I include some scrap 2×2's and deck screws I had around the house to connect everything. I purchased three 1x6x16 foot treated lumber at about $9.50 each. This box has the same volume as the other box on the back patio – the other one is 2 feet wide by 16 feet long – and the new box is 4 feet wide by 8 feet long.
The new box definitely will give a lot more growing space! Next year I am thinking that I may put the tomatoes in this area and then use the area behind the garage for green beans – since the tomatoes just are not doing well this year in their current spot behind the garage.
I am fully out of space now in the back yard – unless I build another 4×4 box right next to the garage but I doubt I will do that.