Well, thanks to those fence panels I talked about earlier, I’m going to have 13 4’ x 4’ raised garden beds. I’m saving the wood I bought to use on other projects, so yay!
Thought you might like to see some of the finished beds, so here are some pictures:
Sorry about the screen: I took them from an upstairs window.
In order to stretch my topsoil as far as possible, I fill the boxes with a generous layer of moldy, rotting hay before adding the soil. It will sink over time, but I’ll just top it up with layers of compost and mulch as needed.
These pictures are a few weeks old. I’ve since filled three more beds with soil and planted potatoes in the upper-right-hand bed. I’ve also planted everything else that says to plant “as soon as soil can be worked.” And I planted broccoli and cabbage under little milk-jug protectors, since I didn’t get them started inside soon enough. Three of them have already sprouted and seem to have no trouble with the freezing nights.
And speaking of starting seeds: I started my tomatoes, watermelon, muskmelon, and some others indoors. They have mostly sprouted and some are starting to grow true leaves.
And out in the garden, my radishes are coming up. Yay!
Still have five more boxes to build and six more to fill. Buying my topsoil by the truckload is a lot easier than digging it by hand, even at $25 a load. One load will fill at least 4 boxes, so I should only need one more load, and then maybe a load of compost later.
Yes, this looks like a lot of work, but I really haven’t spent that much time on it: an hour here or there, nothing more.
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