Building the Raised Beds

April 18^th 2011

  Today we begin the building of the raised beds.

As I mentioned earlier we won’t be cutting any more gardens, breaking the ground.  Instead I found this great idea on line… lay the area that is going to be the garden with layers of newsprint.  Water it down until saturated and cover with 8” of soil… garden ready to go…

I am curious to see how that works. It seems so much simpler than the backbreaking task of pulling up sod.

My brother made quick work of building the beds at the east side of the house. We built a two tier garden… This will house some of the plants that have deeper root systems and another one along the fence. …. Then Kelly built the eight 4’ x 4’ boxes in the back yard.

Now what to do with the grass between the boxes?  Enough space was left for the lawn mower to get in between but I can see that this will quickly become annoying where the grass grows up along the walls of the raised beds…. More edges!  This will become a new project throughout the summer.

I have garden soil being delivered.  It will be mixed with my compost that is almost a year old now… I struggle with the fact that all soil that you buy, bagged or bulk seems to have peat in it.  This is a product that I have tried to avoid buying since the peat bogs are not  sustainable. Peat bogs take hundreds of years to replenish.  Coconut hair is available and is sustainable but I haven’t seen it in bulk and the brick size pieces are pretty expensive.

We will fill the new beds and give them a chance to rest for a month or so before planting begins…

Yes… I am going worm shopping…. Even though I know that the worms will naturally migrate to this wonderful spot I thought I would create a resort for our new guests.