Hello everyone. I have been trying to figure out what to do about my existing raised beds, which were made with untreated lumber and are now rotting after about 6 years. After reading about these concrete block beds, I'm considering just removing the screws from the rotting lumber and putting concrete blocks down around the the existing beds and just let the wood continue to rot away. I have two 3x8 foot beds, four 4x4 foot beds, and a 3x6 foot bed...all of them are only 6" high. The 3 block height beds pictured above are really nice looking...are they high enough to keep rabbits out? If that would let me get rid of my rabbit fencing, it might be worth the expense and back pain of rebuilding them with concrete, although I would have to get a ton of additional compost to fill the beds. The additional height would also allow to me to quit worrying about weeds, grass, etc, growing in between and sometimes into the beds...I could just spray vinegar around and/or take the weed whacker through the area. I appreciate any advice!

I used cinder blocks 8x8x16 around several planting beds in my garden. In one bed, which I used on the surface to level a bed I used for lettuce, I planted a marigold set in each void. Worked out great! Many flowers, all summer! The other bed, I set the cinder blocks at ground level around a 1-1/2 ft deep pit that I dug in our native clayey-sandy decomposed sandstone soil. (No organic material, no N, high P & K values, pH around 7.5 - 8.0) I amended the soil with 50% native soil and about 5 cu ft of coconut coir, cotton burr compost, steer and sheep manure, & blood meal in a 4' x 5' plot. The open voids I filled with water when watering, which I think drained into the bed, since the surrounding soil was so rock-like. Potatoes grew fine, but the plants eventually yellowed, and may have been attacked by beetles or other insects. I have another bed of red potatoes, planted a few weeks later (not with cinder blocks) which still have green plants. Do potato plants always end up falling over? It seems that they would do well staked up.

BKay, yes, that is the one I'm talking about. Since I saw no pictures of how he wintered over the pots, I made up a scenario for it. And voila, cinder blocks and timbers as runners, to keep from tearing down the wooden fence not intended to bear such weight as heavy flower pots. Cheerio, Theresa. Wear some latex gloves when you handle the treated wood. The ones I got were freshly received and very heavy and wet, so I had to wear gloves dealing with them. JonnyB, that Walls of Hampshire is exquisite and I suppose whether I like it or not, I'll keep expanding UP....no more room to spread OUT....except convert existing shaded beds to real soil planting space for the best of my hosta. My "allee" will be called to duty later this winter when I make sure the fire ants are gone. They aerated several pots and the hosta roots dried out. Perhaps they will revive next spring, but those became dormant quickly. Hooked, yes, Dixie will be happy to have another huntress to double-team those squirrels with her. At one time, I had three dachshunds; hilarious to watch them play together. They team hunted for rabbits successfully. And the male had a system for catching birds which came to his food bowl outdoors....he never ate them, just hid them in his bed where I smelled them after a couple of days. His treasures. He was a throw-back to standard dachshund size, a real large hunting dog, but his favorite food was....ICE CREAM. The two girls liked liver and fish. Wonderful to have more than one, to see how they interact and relate to one another. I'm looking forward to Dolly's arrival. Hello, Dolly!....It's so great to have you back where you belong. Her breeder sent this picture. Maybe the weekend after Thanksgiving, she will be eating entirely on her own and she can come live with sister Dixie. BTW, the breeder has a stable and is bringing some bags of HORSE MANURE when she comes with Dolly. How nice. :)

Sorry about your flood. I, too, live in SE Wisc and can attest that we had something greater than a 100 yrs flood. It topped the last 100 yrs flood of a few years ago. If your basement walls, footing, and footing drains are proeperly designed and built, then you water flood is attributable about 100% to the sump pump. When the sump pump does not have enough capacity - or in your case it quit- to remove the water as fast as it comes in, the water outside the basement wall will rise over the footings, soak the bottom cinder blocks and continue to rise to grade level. If the sump pump quits, sometimes it better to have the basement flood. If something is blocking the water flow from outside the walls to the sump crock, then water pressure builds on the walls - think of the basement as a concrete boat. This pressure can cause a wall to buckle inward. This hazard is most prevalent for a newly constructed basement without any house over it. The weight of the house helps to stabalize the walls and makes it harder to push the walls in. In the usual construction, a house is not connected to the basement walls; It merely sits on the walls. When a basement floods, it equalizes the hydraulic pressure on both sides of the wall. When I witnessed the amount of water that fell in the past week, I question the usefulness of a battery operated sump pump. It would have to have a hugh battery bank to keep it running as long as needed. In a storm like this one, a power loss can last 1 day or more. WE-Energies was pretty good about getting power restored in a timely fashion, but they had only so many crews and they worked off a priority list - the most critical came first. A home owners flooded basement does not rate as high as a police and fire station, or a hospital and traffic lights. Last week, hardware stores in Milwaukee reported a run on sump pumps and emergency pumps. They sold out. By your description, you site design seems ok. Water drains have been designed to move the water away from the house. The sump water should be routed more than 10 feet away from the house and to a location that drains away from the house, else the water merely comes back and is recirculated. My advice to you is to replace your sump pump with a quality unit. You may wish to consider a sealed, submersible one, one that can run under water. In my house, my pump does not run very often. It may go a couple of years before turning on, and that can be bad too. 5 years ago, it was finally called on to run and was frozen by corrosion. I was a busy little boy for about an 1/2 hour while I took the pump impeller housing apart to un-jam the pump and get it back in the crock before water started coming over the top of the crock. I barely made it. As part of home maintence, one should run the pump twice a year to insure that it is in working order. if there is no water in the crock, put some in for the test. I watched a house next door being refurbished, It is owned by a trust of siblings who inherited it. They had a damp basement wall problem. As part of the upgrade, dirt was dug away from the absement wall and a waterpproof sheet was glued to the outside of the wall down to a depth of about 5 feet. This week was a test on that job. Not everyone can afford one, but a backup alternator is good. Have an electrican arrange the circuits to run the sump, refrigerator, freezer, a couple of lights, and the telephone off the alternator. Size the alternator to carry the loads mention above plus a margin. Again, this unit will require periodic maintence to stay in working order. Gasoline engines that sit for long periods of time can become inoperative. And one must have enough fuel on hand to run the alternator for a few hours. Hopefully, replacement fuel can be procured during the emergency.