The Project
I decided to replace my infamous bucket garden with a raised garden bed using the basic concept of lasagna gardening.
I’d been searching for 8 in x 8 in x 16 in concrete blocks that cost less than what Lowes or Home Depot would charge for several weeks. But Kirk finally confessed that he didn’t like the idea of how they would look, and that he was willing to spend money to buy landscape (retaining wall) blocks. So, off to Home Depot we went, and in one afternoon we had the outline of a raised bed. The ground there was relatively flat and very hard (so hard grass wouldn’t even grow there) so we did very little to level it. We did not use any mortar between the bricks as it would not be needed with the relatively light amount of material the bricks would be ‘retaining’. The bed is roughly 4 foot by 12 foot, being a little wider in the middle and having a slight curve to it. We bought enough brick to go four rows high, but decided when we reached three rows high that it would be enough. The first level has 36 blocks. The blocks have a small tongue on the back of them to set them back slightly for each row of height that you add, so each level got slightly smaller. The second row had 35 2/3rds blocks and the last row had about 35 1/3rd blocks. (Thank you Kirk and Will for helping me get them placed just how I wanted them.)
Then it was up to me to fill it.
Before we put the bricks down, I had collected cardboard boxes for several weeks. These I had laid out under the area where the raised bed would be a few weeks before. Initially, I had my bucket garden on top of the cardboard to hold it all down and kept the cardboard wet with the hose.
Here are a few shots of the buckets off to the side and the bricks ready to be filled (click picture to see photo album):
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| From Raised Bed 2011 |
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| From Raised Bed 2011 |
I placed weed block cloth around the outer edge of the raised bed to prevent soil from slipping out of the cracks between the bricks.
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| From Raised Bed 2011 |
Last fall Kirk and I had raked up (and blown) lots and lots of mostly oak leaves, shredded them, and piled them in the back yard in an area that we are trying to control some vinca. This served two purposes; keeping the vinca at bay and creating some nice compost and leaf mold. I took 3 wheelbarrows full of this leafy, gooey, stinky stuff and put it in the bottom of the raised bed.
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| From Raised Bed 2011 |
Then I took the hose and watered it in so it would stay in place while I took a break.
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| From Raised Bed 2011 |
A close up of the leaf compost:
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| From Raised Bed 2011 |
At this point I went back to Home Depot and bought 12 cubic feet of peat moss, 4 cubic feet of mushroom compost, and 8 cubic feet of Scotts Garden Soil (because it was cheapest). The helpful folks at Home Depot helped me load it all into Kirk’s truck, and I brought it all home. Hooray for having a Home Depot within 3 miles of home! Poor sick Kirk helped me unload his truck, and then went back in the house to take a nap.
Then I started layering. 6 feet of peat moss on top of the leaf compost.
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| From Raised Bed 2011 |
2 cubic feet of mushroom compost and 4 cubic feet of garden soil (I know that in it’s purest form you don’t put soil into a lasagna bed, but I’m impatient!):
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| From Raised Bed 2011 |
The above materials all smoothed out:
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| From Raised Bed 2011 |
Followed by 2 more wheelbarrows of leaf compost and 6 cubic feet of peat moss:
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| From Raised Bed 2011 |
Topped off with the last 2 cubic feet of mushroom compost and the last 4 cubic feet of garden soil:
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| From Raised Bed 2011 |
Then I watered it all down and called it good for a day:
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| From Raised Bed 2011 |
So, it’s only about 2/3rds full of growing materials. I have about another 7 cubic feet of topsoil in the buckets that will eventually go in the raised bed as well. Of course, it will all settle over time, but I just keep adding compost and leaves and such as time goes on.
Expense
All in all the brick was the most expensive part of the project,about $200 worth. I had wanted to use topsoil from elsewhere in the yard, but the sprinkler system we have is incredibly shallow (I dug only 4 inches down in one area and found a pipe between two sprinkler heads!)and I thought it best to leave things as is. So the peat moss, mushroom compost and garden soil cost about $90. There are ALL sorts of ways this could have been done cheaper, but I’m happy with the look, and more importantly (apparently hehehe ) so is Kirk.
Time and effort
The most labor intensive part was actually the raking, blowing, and shredding of the leaves. But that was something we most likely would have been doing anyway so I consider it a wash. That was probably about 8 hours of work over several sessions last fall. Purchasing, hauling, unloading and setting up the bricks took about 3 hours. There were three of us doing the work, plus the Home Depot guy did a lot of the loading. Filling the bed took me about 6 hours, and I wasn’t in any hurry.
What is next
Plants! I am going to let most of what I have in the buckets currently live their lives out in the buckets. I will probably move the two tomato plants I have into the raised bed. I will be planting cucumbers and peppers and more tomatoes in the raised bed soon. I would like to top off the blocks with some topper stones eventually, just to make it look pretty, but I am not sure when I’ll be doing that, could be tomorrow, could be a few months form now. I’d also like to use some weed block to make a distinct path around the raised bed and perhaps lay some stone down with a sand base to help keep the lawn from creeping in, but there is no rush on that either.
I’ll be sure to post again when I have stuff growing in my new raised bed!
