Harvesting a healthier garden

Spring is here at last! Most of us can’t wait to shake off the winter blues, to get out into the sunshine, walk the dog, play catch with the kids or just take a stroll in the park. For homeowners, it’s the first chance to work on the yard, restore a lush lawn and, for an increasing number of gardening aficionados, create a home vegetable garden. Inner city urbanites, even those with a postage stamp size yard, have been swept up by the ‘grow your own’ movement.

Victory Gardens, first introduced by Eleanor Roosevelt during the Great War, were the original community raised gardens. People were encouraged to grow their own veggies in support of the war effort. Today, raised garden beds have replaced them as the eco-friendly solution for eating healthier without adding to the carbon footprint caused by trucking produce from the grower to the store.

Thanks to the Frame It All(TM) raised bed gardening system, it’s nearly effortless to assemble a raised garden bed and easy to maintain with minimal weeding and back-breaking bending to water and maintain it — a boon for seniors! Gone are the tattered, rotting wood frames or hulking ugly railroad ties that can overpower the aesthetics of even the most beautiful yard. Manufactured with 40 percent wood fiber and 60 percent recycled post-consumer plastic, the Frame It All(TM) rigid, ‘green’ composite timbers are attractive with a wood grain finish that is UV protected. The raised garden bed timbers will never rot, splinter, warp nor become infested and are recyclable. The patented heavy duty, corner joints and brackets make it simple to increase the size and height dimensions at any time. It’s like ‘Lego’ for gardeners!!

“I have a small back yard which is used by my entire family and dog,” says Nicole from Spring, Texas. “So I like having an area set apart from the rest of the yard in which I can garden. This system is so easy to put together, and it looks great! I’m not a very good construction person, but I found the assembly instructions were easy to follow, and all I needed was a screwdriver and a mallet.”

Home vegetable growers control the quality of the soil, nutrients and other additives so veggies and fruits grown in a raised garden bed taste better, are healthier and cost much less than those from bought at the local market. Of course, the icing on the cake is the self-satisfaction and joy of serving up delicious tomatoes and veggies picked fresh from the garden.

• Think vertically. Adding the Veggie Wall trellis from Frame It All(TM) to a raised bed vegetable garden greatly increases the amount of vertical growing space and provides the needed support for cultivating squash, beans, tomatoes and other vines. As well as giving a viable option for those without a lot of space, a vertical growing system also pays numerous dividends to the garden itself. Plants on the vine enjoy greater air circulation and so are healthier and not as susceptible to disease.

“I just put mine together with my 13 year old son, and it was a breeze,” says Paula from Valley Forge, PA. “We had lots of rain last night, so it was very easy to get the corners into the soil. We filled it with compost, chopped leaves, manure, and top soil. I think this is a great raised bed frame. We plan to plant onions and garlic in this one, and will be putting more of these in the veggie garden within the next few weeks.”

• Add compost and mulch to the garden. If weeds are a gardener’s worst enemy, compost and mulch might just be a gardener’s best friend. Compost adds any number of microorganisms to the soil, strengthening a plant’s roots and enabling it to pick up more nutrients in the process. Mulch, meanwhile, can help keep down harmful weeds, thereby reducing the competition a plant will have for valuable water and nutrients.

To view the entire Frame It All product line and locate a Garden or Home Center near you, visit www.frameitall.com or your local Home Depot store. (MS)

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