First time raising a garden??

You're close enough to stike that you should be able to get all the horsesh!t you need. You can probably get more than you care for from just a quick phone call with him.

Why didn't I think of that! Ha ha ha Thanks

I'm a pretty avid gardener and do a lot of veggie gardening. I'm also a master gardener which really only means I know where to look up answers to questions.

8" long is fine. The longer the better, imo. 4" wide - what you want to consider is reaching in to get to the center. I assume you can reach in from both sides, so the most you are reaching is 2". If you have a bad back or anyone working the beds does, you might want to reconsider that width. Otherwise, it sounds great.

Yes, it's a bit of room, but you'll always want/need more than you have. Especially if you want to put in any perennial type veggies, such as asparagus.

Anything like squash, melons, pumpkins, takes up a lot of room. And if you want to do any canning or freezing for winter use, then you'll want to plant a lot.

I didn't look to see where you live, but the soil in raised beds will warm up sooner, so if you life in a cool weather area, you'll be able to plant a bit sooner.

If you have any specific questions, let me know. It's always good to find which varieties do well in your area and start with those. I also have a really good 'recipe' for soil amendments, so if you're interested in that, shoot me an email.

Be sure your horse manure is well composted and free of weed seeds.

Steve, I've always felt they stayed warmer longer, but you raise a good question. It stands to reason they might cool off faster. I did some searching and could only find this - http://knol.google.com/k/how-to-create-a-raised-bed-vegetablegarden#What_Are_The_Benefits_of_Using_a_Raised_Bed(3F) - which says they stay warmer longer. So I would go ahead and give them a try.

You have even a shorter growing season than I do, so you're really limited. I think you would be okay for tomatillos. For peppers, you might want to consider growing in straw bales. You can really get going sooner because you can manually get the straw bales to heat up. Do a google search for straw bale gardening and you'll find tons of info.

You can also put growing fabric over your plants to extend the season. It's fairly easy to do with raised beds and some pvc pipe.

One problem we have in Washington is besides the short growing season, it doesn't really get that hot here. It's my opinion that we'll never have a great tomato here because you need sun as well as heat. So you can forcefully extend the season all you want, but without the heat and sun, we'll never get great tomatoes. Washington can produce decent tomatoes and people around here who have never had a great tomato will think Washington tomatoes are good, but they really aren't!

So I don't know how hot it gets where you are, but for those heat-loving plants, besides getting a jump on the season, I think you almost have to do the hoop thingies to get the heat.

Altho last summer where we barely had any sun at all, a friend of mine had chili peppers all over the place.

I actually had volunteer tomatillos two years ago and didn't really do anything with them as I didn't know what to do. I had a decent tomato crop that year and made a lot of good sauce but imo they weren't the fabulous eating tomatoes I was used to in California.

At least we get the long days here. Which you do as well, and probably even longer than our days.

Gwen,

Thank you. I have grown tomatiilos before (in an garden that was on the east side of the house) with good results. Chilis are a real problem here. I actually have boiler lines out where I'm planning the garden and was thinking of running them underneath to protect against frost. Have been looking at greenhouses too.

Steve