The Promised Story of the Four Raised Beds

My siblings and I were reared in a gardening culture in the middle of Kansas where sun was never in short supply. Full sun vegetable gardens were the rule in every side yard in our small town of Hesston, KS. If some gardens, like my grandmother's, displayed a few flowers, fine, but the main event was food production. We grew up helping in the garden from early spring to late fall. We ate home canned tomatoes, green beans, red beets, and pickled cucumbers all year long. 

Both my brothers now live in sunny places and grow vegetables, but my sister and I settled in urban areas where the shade from the tree canopy restricts our gardens to mostly flowers. My older brother Dan and I have had an ongoing debate about whether you can call a garden a garden if no vegetables and only flowers grow in it. I say yes, living in metro Atlanta, where graceful flower gardens reign supreme. But Dan is of the veggie school. 

He insisted the mere four hours of midday sun I got in my backyard between the loblolly pines would be enough to manage some shade-tolerant radishes and greens. So one visit eleven years ago, he spent a full weekend building me four beautiful raised beds that would allow me to prove his point.

I tried. I really did, as shown by these photos of my grandchildren picking the radishes we grew that first year. 

 But across the years, as the trees grew taller and the sun time decreased, I've reverted to 100% flower gardening, and Dan sends me his homegrown tomatoes in the mail.

 Still, I want you to know, Dan, how much pleasure your weekend project of 2013 brings me every year, showing off different species of flowers. If I thought they'd survive the trip, I'd send you some of this year's snapdragons in the mail. 

~dkm 4/30/24