Garden

I've been wanting to put in a garden for a while, but never had the motivation to actually get down to it. Funny how a little bit of GLOBAL PANDEMIC goes a long way in helping one get motivated. This isn't a very complex project, but it was fun. Plus I got to use my little tractor! My first task was to locate and design the basic garden idea. As our soil is filled (I mean it's packed) with river cobble - it's almost impossible to dig. Also I'm getting old enough - I don't want to bend over, so the solution was raised beds. I decided to build four out of redwood in a 4' x 8' configuration at about 24" deep. That ends up needing 9.5 cuft of potting soil. 

Get the wood

Clear the site

Start building the beds

All the sides, done!

Once I had the basic sides built, I needed to assemble them in place. I'm not sure if this was important, but I left about 8" on each 4x4 to allow the sides to be "pinned" into the ground. This, of course, meant I had to dig 6 x 4 = 24 holes, 8" deep - in the correct location. That took a while. I needed to borrow a hammer drill to get down that deep!

First one. Note the Hammer drill

Number 2

Starting number 3

Boxes built. Irrigation started.

Once the boxes where built, I lined the bottoms with 1/4" hardware cloth for gophers. I installed PVC for water and ran irrigation control wires to each bed. I'm not sure I'll use them, but wanted them in place if I went that way. I got the soil delivered, then filled up the boxes

Soil delivered

Filling the beds

Dirt all in, waiting for plants

So after a week of work, I was ready to plant. Fortunately, there's a nursery very close that had a lot of starts for sale. We went over there and picked up a bunch of stuff and stuck it in the ground. So far, it seems very happy! I had an old electric poultry fence that I've rigged up around the garden to keep the rabbits out.