Yes, that is what is contained in our new raised beds in the backyard 🙂 It took two days of nearly back-breaking bed building and soil shuffling, but we are officially in business and I am now trying to figure out what all should go in those beds!!!
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| We have built a total of 8 beds, each completely separate from the one next to it. |
Let me start at the beginning. A couple of months ago, Tool Lady and I started thinking about ways to change up the backyard in order to grow some more veggies. A couple of weeks ago, we decided that adding a few new raised bed would be nice, but we couldn’t decide on actual raised beds or straw bale “beds” or ground level beds or…yada yada yada…too many options, not enough time. Last week, we agreed that raised beds were the way to go and on Thursday, Tool Lady sat down and did the math. She estimated that, with lumber and soil, the project we wanted to complete would cost us about $700 dollars (about $250 for lumber and another $450 for soil). Holy hell…we’d have to grow a ton of veggies to make up that amount!
Then, on Friday evening, Tool Lady saw an ad on craigslist (yep, again) for reclaimed lumber. Long story short, we bought the lumber. The guy delivered it to our house on Friday morning and he and his wife helped Tool Lady unload it while I was at an appointment (perfect timing, ha?). In total, we probably got 20X as much lumber as we needed, but it only cost us $100. Score #1.
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| About half of the boards we got were approximately 1X10X15feet… way more lumber than we ever imagined! |
Then, Tool Lady found a local soil yard (not a nursery) that excavates land up by Hyde Park (just north of here) and mixes the soil with horse manure. We went to the yard to check it out and it looked great! The guy said he’d charge us $38 a yard and if we bought 8 cubic yards, they’d deliver it for free. Total cost = $304. Score #2.
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| It took about 7 hours to move all this soil from the driveway to our backyard. We used lots of buckets, a wheel-barrel and a lot of brute strength. We were also blessed to have the help of a good friend 🙂 |
The whole project took us two full days at half the cost it would have been, plus we made some local connections and still have a ton of lumber left over 🙂 We’re now looking at additional projects that we can use the lumber for (an official work bench for Tool Lady and a complete garage re-design and shelf re-configuration are already in the works) and are considering selling what’s left on…you guessed it…craigslist.
Now, back to the actual beds! First, we had to get rid of all the crap that was where we wanted the new beds to go.
Then, we figured out why nothing would grow in the original ground level bed. Yes, those are tree roots from our neighbors trees…about 2 inches below the surface. Yeah…that’s a problem.
Next, we laid out a few random boards to get an idea of how our new beds would actually look.
Then, it was time for measuring and cutting, measuring and cutting…
After the skeletons of the beds were built, it was time for some fun 🙂 Luckily, our friends came by to visit for a bit…we were definitely ready for a break and decided to call it a day.
On Saturday we started by putting stakes in the ground in order to stabilize each bed. We then stapled two layers of weed cloth to the bottom and along the lower sides of each bed. The hope is that this will help stop the above mentioned roots from actually entering the beds. (In other parts of the yard we have found roots right underneath the weed cloth but not actually breaking through the weed cloth, so our fingers are crossed.)
Then, we separated each of the larger beds into two smaller beds. The total length of each of the 3 beds is 10 feet, which means we actually have 6 five foot beds (4 of which are 5X3 and 2 of which are 5X3 1/2).
Finally, we connected each of the larger beds with 2 smaller beds (2 1/2 feet square) and filled them all with soil.
We intentionally made all of the beds two feet deep so we can plant anything we want to in them at any given time. We will now be able to effectively practice crop rotation (including potatoes) and plant lots of roots crops 🙂
After all of the sweat and sore muscles, now comes the fun part…planning and planting!
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LOVE! These are exactly what I want for my garden! Must now start searching Craigslist. 🙂
Thanks Laurie! I love them, too 🙂 Good luck with your craigslist search!!! Try freecycle, too!
Holy cow, they are gorgeous!! It’s so funny, too, we have been debating the same thing here, and decided to go with raised beds since they’ve worked the best in the past. But, oh the price of new cedar – yikes! Just last night I found an ad on Craig’s list for 90 boards at half the price! Hoping we can get them…. 😀
-Jaime
Thanks, Jaime! New cedar is so incredibly expensive, I sure hope you got the lumber off of craigslist! Did you get it???
Not yet, waiting to hear back and need to make sure it’s untreated, but fingers crossed!! Craigslist farm and garden section is both my blessing and my curse 😉
P.S. If you ever move, take those beautiful beds with you. I had four that we ended up leaving when we bought our land, and I’ve been kicking myself! (I also got talked out of bringing the compost pile and I missed that last year, too lol)
Oh yes, it is definitely a blessing and a curse! Tool Lady is on there all the time! We may have to make a separate budget just for craigslist 😉 I hope the lumber works out for you, though!
We have actually talked about all of the things we’ve done to the yard in relation to our eventual move. We will either sell the property as an “urban farm” to someone who will use it as such or take it all with us. Pretty funny to think about taking your yard with you, ha? But really, so much time, effort and money has gone into it, it doesn’t make sense not to! 🙂
Bee girl that looks fantastic! your gardening space is really developing, you guys are such an inspiration to small scale self sufficiency! you must be so excited to get planting now 🙂 I look forward to your next update xx
Awww…Thanks, Astra!
I’m so jealous of your recycled wood. When we put in our raised beds we searched all over for recycled lumber and couldn’t find it so we ended up buying. 🙁 Good luck with the new beds they look fantastic!!
Yeah…we totally scored. Craigslist doesn’t work all the time, but when it does, it works well 😉 Your beds are gorgeous and worth it in the long run! No worries 🙂
I think the weed cloth is a great idea – I wish I’d done that with my beds as I spend so much time digging my neighbours trees roots out of my beds too.
I think we’ll have to dig out two of the beds we built last year, lay down some weed cloth and refill them. Not fun, but probably necessary. Stinkin’ roots!
Awesome! I love it. We get our compost and top soil from Soilutions.net if you ever want organic compost in a pinch. They’ve come through for us twice now, and I love their products. Their compost (you can mix it 50/50 with your soil if possible) costs $39.00 per cubic yard for some of the best blackest and most beautiful compost ever.
On another subject, I was trying to leave a comment on Giant Veggie Gardener’s blog, but it takes me to HER admin. Can you check to see if that happens to you too? I don’t have a way to contact her about this glitch. Here is the post I was trying to comment on:
http://giantveggiegardener.com/2012/04/09/seed-germination-trouble-seed-heating-mat-too-hot/#comments
Wow – what a fantastic score on the lumber! And they look FABULOUS!
Thanks, Allison! We’re super excited 🙂
Thanks for the compost tip! That sounds amazing!
I tried leaving a comment on giantveggiegardener.com and it worked 🙂 Glitch in the system, probably 😉 Poor little seeds were getting fried!
AWESOME score! They look great! Soon enough you will be up to your tukus in veggies!
Ha! I sure hope so! I can’t wait to start planting (but I do have to)! 😉