Trapped in a Forest of Bamboo: Our Raised Bed Gardens

Above are a few shots of our raised bed gardens here at BGG. We are pretty militant around here so we named them after one of the military alphabets – Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, and Foxtrot. Hopefully you get the idea. Currently we have 6 beds with Golf being the latest which we will highlight in another post. You might notice the GSP in the shots, we call her Katie and she helps keep pests out of our gardens like chipmunks and squirrels.

Here’s what this area looked like before we laid down our raised beds:

Yes that is a bamboo grove that is sitting in the middle of four 120 foot pine trees. We quickly took those pesky pines down before they could fall on us and went to work on the grove with an arsenal of chainsaws, stump grinders, yard torches, and a ton of black plastic.

Trapped in a Forest of Bamboo

During this process several times, I found myself quite literally trapped in a forest of bamboo. Aside from my Husqvarna chainsaw, my second favorite weapon used in the war on bamboo was a small gnomish pick axe also known as a cutter mattock to some. The whole affair was an effort in insanity but it paid dividends. Nearly a year later we had reclaimed nearly a third of the backyard. And then the raised bed gardens were born (rather constructed from ad-hoc plans). Shortly after the head broke off the mattock so I replaced it with a new one with a fiberglass handle.

Our Raised Bed Gardens

The entire experience was educational, however, I hope to never have to take down another bamboo grove ever again. One day I will do another post on the clumping bamboo that lives on the other side of the property.

Unfortunately I need to get back outside and toil in the raised bed gardens for a bit. Someone has to do the planting and grounds keeping around here. Hopefully you enjoyed my post.

Begrudgingly Yours,

Bad Gnöme