Bluegrass Garden Beds got its start in the summer of 1997 on a hill overlooking the Ohio River in Western Kentucky. At that time founder, Mike Wyatt, just didn’t know it. Mike would disc up the garden spot, till it up good, drag it smooth, and then help his wife Cindy plant the garden. That night, most years it seemed, it would come a hard driving rain. The next morning, most everything had washed down to the foot of the hill. Then it all had to be done all over again. To make matters worse, the soil is rocky and mostly clay.

In 2000 Cindy had been reading about raised bed gardening. Mike was pretty easily talked into building the beds. He was tired of having two harvests, the one on top of the hill by the house and the other at the bottom of the hill that the rain carried down. Cindy declared that she only needed six beds, 3’ x 16’ x 12”. Mike says “no problem”, and with the help of his son Brian, they set out to build the beds. At the end of the weekend, the beds were in place. A dump truck load of compost later, the garden was ready to be planted. Gardening now was fun and unbelievably productive.

Almost every year since the beds went in someone would ask Mike to build beds for them. He built beds for his friends Frank and Carla, sister-in-law Renee, daughter Heather and his neighbor, Dick. Mike retired a couple of years ago and doing nothing gives him a lot of trouble. That winter when Dick asked Mike to help him build a bed, Mike thought, there might just be something here to keep him busy.

After talking with a lot of gardeners and his Office Manager/Gardener Josie about what they would like to see in a garden bed system, the design work started. Mike has designed and built equipment for the rail industry for the last 32 years and working with wood was foreign to him. Being a firm believer in, “If you don’t know ask”, he went to his friend and neighbor Jon, who is a master carpenter. The two of them “hatched” the plan of using dovetails so that no tools would be required for easy assembly and they could be added onto at any time. They have a patent pending status on their idea.

Since starting the manufacturing process, Mike’s brother Ronnie, and “Cousin Eddie”, (for real) and son Brian, have all joined in to saw, run machines or whatever is needed. While Josie is not related, she is definitely one of the family. Don is also a valued friend and longtime co-worker.

Thank you for visiting our site. We appreciate your business and we welcome your calls (no answering system here, just nice people) or emails. Please tell a friend about our products.

 

For more information, please contact us at
Office: 270-994-2320
Fax: 270-443-1786
Email: bluegrassgardenbeds@gmail.com

116 Toy York Rd.
Benton, KY 42025