Our Vegetable Garden - Bed #1

Ever since we moved into the new place Susan has been anticipating a vegetable garden in the backyard. We have very poor soil so it was decided that a raised bed, filled with good mix of soil, would be best. Many hours of thought and discussion went into deciding what type of construction to use. Our first choice was interlocking AllanBlocks, which makes a wonderful looking wall, however three things changed our minds about the AB system: First, they were quite expensive; second, each block is quite heavy; and finally, minimum delivery would have been $300 by itself. We then considered less expensive stacking concrete blocks but they were designed more for curved walls and left gaps where the dirt could work its way out. We only briefly looked at cedar or redwood timbers but the cost was out of sight. Finally, we compromised and opted for treated timbers. They were the most affordable, highly durable, and easy to work with, but - they were also "treated" with chemicals. To get around any possible contamination from the preservative chemicals we planned to double layer the inside walls of the garden with heavy plastic sheets.

It was now time for the daydreaming and planning to end and the hard work to begin. First, where was the septic tank buried. Certainly we wouldn't want to place the garden atop something that would have to be accessed. I figured I knew where it had to be and grabbed my shovel. After to digging and refilling holes in the most obvious locations I decided I really didn't have a clue. Susan grabbed the shovel and dig, dig, dig - hmmmmm - fill, fill, fill. Ah, a quick trip to the county permit office and $5 bucks produced a sketch on file showing where the tank and drain field were located. Good thing we checked since it would have been under bed #2!

The following few steps were to stake out the septic tank and beds #1 and #2, and then purchase and haul timbers to the backyard.

Meanwhile, our nesting female bluebird failed to see the humor in our encroachment on her territory.

Assembly of the bed #1 went relatively quickly and after two days of planning and building (measure, cut, level, spike, repeat.....) we were ready for the fill. The final two construction steps were to hang the plastic and place a layer of ground fabric on the bottom.



We became very friendly with Green Brothers Earth Works and bought all the timbers and fill from them. Fortunately they are only 5 miles from our house. First we purchased a cubic yard of gravel (they call it #57 stone) for the bottom layer. Because of the weight of this product (2400 lbs per cubic yard) it took us two truckloads in my old pickup (172K miles and still running nicely). Next we laid down a second layer of fabric and, truckload by truckload and shovel full by shovel full, filled the bed with "landscaper's mix", a locally made mixture of screened topsoil, organic mulch, granite dust, etc that makes a great starting medium for a garden. We needed five cubic yards of this product but since it only weighed 1800 lbs per cubic yard, it only took us five trips.


All totaled we moved, by shovel twice and wheel barrel once, 11,400 pounds of fill - plus carrying 20 - 6" X 6" X (either 6' or 8') timbers around back. Of course as you can see we both took turns filling the wheel barrel, which I then pushed to the garden spot, up an improvised ramp, and emptied into to the bed where Susan would level the material off.















Here is the "almost finished" bed #1, lacking only 2 X 6 or 2 X 8 cedar planks to cap off the top. Now I did say "bed #1", bed #2 won't be far behind.

It didn't take Susan long to prepare the bed (that's not a divining rod but a fence to hold the tomato plants up) and put in some of veggie plants. I can taste those tomatoes, peppers, eggplants and squashes already!