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4x4 Boxes, 8" deep, ready to be laid down in the garden.[/caption]Outside, the components of the soil mixture awaited in the back garden.
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Two truckloads of compost, with a few cubic feet of peat moss.[/caption]Thanks very much to our Pallie With Truck, we were able to secure two truckloads of compost, one from The Ground Up by Memorial & I-10, and another from Living Earth in Missouri City. Thanks also to a little hidden gem in Gulfton, Southwest Fertilizer, we found both enough of the coarse vermiculite and peat moss that we needed to make up the soil mixture for the beds.
Noticed that the vegan compost from The Ground Up was denser and warmer than the stuff from Living Earth, when the loads were initially placed here at home from the compost lot. However, the next day, both loads were still quite steamy, fragrant, and in essence, just the sort of stuff you might almost wish you could dive into.
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Rest assured, the bucket was not on fire! Just steam from the glorious pile o'compost.[/caption][caption id="attachment_20" align="alignnone" width="625"]
Just a bit of steamy goodness coming out from the compost. Thank you, bacteria and other microbes![/caption]Then we set about mixing: a third each of peat, coarse vermiculite, and compost. We're taking inspiration here from Mel Bartholomew's Square Foot Gardening, though we settled for a 2-blend compost, not the 5-blend he recommends.
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Mixing it up: peat, coarse vermiculite, compost.[/caption]We laid out weedcloth (unfortunately, I believe this stuff is not biodegradable - next go-around, it would be great to get the stuff that will decompose sooner rather than later) and set the boxes down, one by one.
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Ta-da! The first raised bed. Yes, you're gorgeous. And empty.[/caption][caption id="attachment_24" align="alignnone" width="625"]
Fill 'er up! With the help of a trusty wheelbarrow.[/caption][caption id="attachment_25" align="alignnone" width="625"]
Smoothening out the soil. Such fun work. So, not really work. Just fun fun.[/caption]And so on. In the end, we had four beds, skirting the back side of the house:
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Watering the beds just a little bit. For perspective, the fence faces East.[/caption]And, to give perspective, here is where the beds lie in relation to the house, from different angles:
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Facing East, from the breezeway and driveway side of the land.[/caption][caption id="attachment_28" align="alignnone" width="625"]
From the South East corner of the land, right by the Bald Cypress tree (left) and the rather poor Lagerstroemia (right).[/caption][caption id="attachment_29" align="alignnone" width="625"]
From the South West corner of the land, very well shaded in the autumn mornings.[/caption]Though my better half thought that laying down the square foot lathe was silly, I rather liked the idea of straight lines in a garden bed. So, I pre-drilled and installed wood screws into bits of plywood, and the resulting beds looked like this:
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The four finished, gridded beds.[/caption]And this is what I planted on Sunday evening, as the sun was setting:
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Grid 1, Eastern-most[/caption][caption id="attachment_39" align="alignnone" width="256"]
Grid 2, which gets more sun.[/caption][caption id="attachment_38" align="alignnone" width="256"]
Grid 3, with lots of interesting little bits.[/caption][caption id="attachment_37" align="alignnone" width="256"]
And Grid 4, the Western-most grid, with one square of parsley sown 2 years ago in New York City! [/caption]All was planted en-masse, with nary a thought to how to stagger harvest times. We shall, more than likely, have a great abundance of parsley. Tabbouleh, anyone?
Happy Gardening!
