Welcome back! We are excited to try raised beds this year. We are hoping that the placement and new soil will maximize our crops this year.
Why Raised beds?
- The soil is able to remain fluffy allowing for roots to go deep.
- Maximum Sunlight:
- We wanted to put our corn and other vegetables in an area that had more sun throughout the day.
- Easy to weed without bending over.
- Ability to reach all the way across the bed when needed.
- Didn’t want to turn all of our grass area into a garden.
- Better planting soil!
Materials used:
- Old fence board were used for two of the beds.
- Composite Decking (Trex) was used for the other two beds.
- spare 4X4 for the corners.
- 2X4 to keep the boards together on the longer runs.
- Carpenters Cloth/Metal Screen.
We used scrap wood from around the farm to help with cost. We built two boxes with old fence boards and two boxes with old Trex decking. We don’t expect to have the fence bards last more than a couple of years. So when those start to rot we will go over the fence boards with some 2X6. The Trex decking should last along time but from experience I know the trex will bow so we had to attach a 2×2 to keep the sides from eventually bowing outward.
We attached carpenters cloth to the bottom of each box to keep out rodents but allow the worms to enter. We decided not to remove the grass and put down paper instead. This will allow for decompensation of the grass and allows the worms to break down the paper and grass creating fertilizer deep in the box.
We got our dirt to gill the garden boxes from our local sand and gravel company (Corliss, Sumner, WA). They had a gardeners mix, most of the time a gardeners mix consists of soil and compost, we are not entirely sure what this place uses but so far the gardeners mix looks great! We are excided to start planting!
Check back soon for our crop update!
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