Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Raised Beds ( take 2 )


Some of you may remember our raised beds from last year. We used discarded pallets, broke them down to individual slats and rebuilt them into raised beds. Overall they worked wonderfully , but the major flaw was that they we a lot of work. It took us nearly two weeks ( on days off and after work ) to assemble 5 beds. This years effort took only about 2 hours to assemble and yielded over 80 square feet of growing area. 

As always we start with pallets.
12 in all, all cut in half.


Using wood screws we begin to piece them together.





It's a surprisingly fast process.


We lined the bottom with tree trimmings that 
would have been heading for the compost otherwise.

add 4 bales of straw 


Break up and spread the straw

Add a layer of compost

Spread to near the edges and make sure it is 6-8 inches deep.



Water thoroughly


Plan and Plant.

The medium of straw and compost has maintained an ideal temperature for growing. Our sprouts are coming up strong and fast. Some seeds ahead of their expected germination. As always we let you know how it progresses. 

Now enjoy this silly video of us ( and the dog helping ) build these beds. 













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