The snow is gone and our project is finally underway.
Dealing With The Old
When we purchased this home there were three raised vegetable gardening beds already on the property. These were made using pressure treated wood. This means that a lot of toxic chemicals could be leaching out into our vegetables.
Cheap Solution
We can’t afford to replace the pressure treated wood this year. Instead, these beds will be piled high with rich organic soil, straw and unfinished compost to be used as grow heaps for cucurbits. The heaps will be roughly 3 ft above the current wood frame so that no chemicals will be affecting out watermelons, squash, pumpkins and cucumbers. To start we’re turning the sod pieces from our yard upside down in these beds. As the grass decomposes it will provide lots of warmth and nutrients for soil dwelling organisms (like earthworms).
Dealing with Old Pressure Treated Beds
New Raised Beds
We’ve built several new raised beds for our other vegetables. There are many options in terms of materials that last, but most are pricey. We decided that we can’t afford most of these options this year and have opted for untreated wood. Dimensions are 8 ft by 4 ft so that all weeding and maintenance can be done from the path. Each bed is 10 inches high. In time, we’d like to double that height so there will be less stooping and bending. But for now we’re opting for the shorter beds as a cost saving measure.
Because we’ve used untreated wood, these beds are also going to rot and will need to be replaced. But we should get two years out of them before this happens. For now, we’re placing most of our funds towards building the soil. That’s where we’ll see the highest return on our limited investment funds.
New Untreated Temporary Beds
Digging Out The Sod
There are sod lifters for rent at the builder’s supply stores, but our yard is not very large. The sandy soil is also very easy to work with. For now we’re tackling this by hand.
What you see is about 3 hours worth of work using a shovel and digging out one small piece at a time.
We’re keeping all of the lifted sod and allowing it to decompose on our yard. This is a lot of green material to compost and we’ll certainly see an increase in beneficial organisms showing up to deal with the task.
Amazing Shovel
