I thought I'd split this off to a separate thread from my veg and tomato garden progress (although technically this bed belongs in the White Sauce Garden/Tomato Garden) and just post highlights over there since just posting the building process is turning out to be quite cumbersome.
Here is the latest photo of the overall bed and garden area: I'm just going to upload the latest pictures after filling the beds for now, and then go grab links to some of the previously posted pictures. I'll flesh out the descriptive text as I can. So a good deal of this thread may undergo several revisions without obvious notification, though I guess I can try to bump it when I make significant changes.
Subject: Applestar's 2015 Garden
Subject: Applestar's 2015 Gardenapplestar wrote:I got these cut up "skids" thinking I would cut them down more and use them as sides for raised beds, then realized they were perfect solution to putting up some kind of a barrier against my neighbor's lawn service. I have spoken with the workers as well as their sales rep that comes around looking for business a number of times, but I know they don't really "...don't spray anywhere near your fence" or "only use granular product on windy days" or that their products/service is "100% safe because they are inspected by the EPA every month...."
But I've had the skids leaning on the fence for a while -- over a week now I think -- and had not sprung into action because I wasn't satisfied with their height -- it was satisfyingly high enough to completely block anything they are spraying on the grass, but it seemed clunky, out of place, and too much "in-your-face" plus I only had two of these panels and it was obvious I needed one more.
Then a couple of days ago, the light bulb finally lit up and I realized if I cut the top board off so they are three boards high, then I have a THIRD three board high piece that the guy tossed in for free. I wanted to cut them down yesterday but couldn't get to it until the end of the day and I really had to argue myself out of trying to cut anything -- and I had intended to use a cordless reciprocating saw -- when I was already feeling exhausted.
So this morning I waited until decent time -- 8AM, then began. ...it turned out that it was far EASIER to use a regular manual saw, but I was really pleased with the result:
I'm going to cut up a few pallets and make surrounds for raised beds that will support these against the fence -- these lowered panels are 24"H so slightly lower height beds (2 boards or 16" high/deep) should be perfect.
A couple of days ago, I used 3 ft U-posts to support the pallet pieces from falling over outwards, then I put some aged crumbling stumps and logs, branches from the woodpile, etc. in the bottom as fillers and as in hugelkultur, then put a layer of newer and unfinished compost ingredients in the bottom to help with the decomposition process and to invite earthworms and detrivores to the party ...today, I finished filling the beds by wadding the open pallets slats with dried clippings and thatch raked up and gathered from the lawn after DH mowed too tall grass, then with dry windblown leaves from the back fence area: Then a layer of cut green weeds: After packing all these down, I "primed" with about 4 gallons each of stinky aerated alfalfa tea.applestar wrote:My pallet raised bed project is up to this point. I just need to figure out how to secure them to each other, whether I want to be able to easily take them apart, etc.
...I have to hurry because the sunflowers I was going to plant along the fence have sprouted and need to be planted out.
And then filled/covered with several bags of top soil and sand: -- I'm planning to mix in some commercial organic fertilizer and dolomitic lime, maybe some large chunk DE (UltraSorb) and then plant with mushroom compost as the topmost mulching layer.