Raised bed

11/22/13

What a week for gardening! My two master gardeners arrived on Sunday. Heidi gardens on a steep slope in Nashville, and Becki, aside from her own lovely vegetable and flower gardens, has planned and executed lots of more public gardens. We looked at all the raised beds we could find online and

came up with a sketch of what we wanted to build outside the kitchen window. We went to Home Depot and debated between pressure treated lumber and natural redwood, and decided to go with redwood. We used many of the ideas here. The sides are 2x6x12' (2 high in the first layer), and the ends 2x6x4'. That means the outside dimensions are 12'x52"x12". The second tier is 2x6x8' wide by 2x6x2' deep. 

We (which in all cases means Wolfgang, who improved the design, figured out the realization of our wishes, and added features that made it more robust) used 4x4s to reinforce the corners in the lower level, 2x2s above. The inner wall is the 

top level only, with vertical supports down to the ground. We think the Sunset idea to line the bottom of the bed with hardware cloth was clever - our hills are unfortunately riddled with gopher holes and I'd love to not share the juicy roots with them. 

We got a pickup load of compost from our local county recycling facility for $14/cubic meter (the load cost $30), and had to mix it 1:1 with dirt. That will last us quite a while and supply the beds in back of the house as well as this raised bed. It's rich (and stinky - smelled like a dairy farm!) stuff! The smell lasted for a few days and we were quite relieved when it dissipated.

We piled a huge plastic bag of leaves into the bed before alternating wheelbarrows of dirt and compost. They should break down nicely over time and provide more organic matter. I am hoping there were also some worms in the leaves, some of which were already breaking down a bit at the side of the road. Otherwise we'll be looking for an alternative source.

The only photo of the 3 sisters together;
evidently our focus was elsewhere

While planting the queen palm was heroic,
it wasn't until we saw the photo that I was
reminded of this.

We picked up plants at Alan Hall's nursery and planted 4 of the queen palms on our upper hill. Before putting them in their hole, which was just as deep as the root ball and twice as wide, we filled it with 

water and let it seep in. Thus we were convinced that the drainage is good. We found the big palms were quite pot bound, so took some time to separate the roots, even chopping some with an ax to be sure they could grow outward. 

The bougainvillea is in the ground too, but lots of plants are still awaiting their turn.