Tag Archives: soil

Raised Garden

Leave a reply

To make the corners of the garden sturdy I cut the timbers to interlock. Then I drilled a hole all the way through and hammered in a 36″ rebar pin. I did it the same way for the first half and it's worked out pretty well.
You can see again, I'm using newspaper to help keep the grass from growing up to the garden surface.
Originally I left the pins sticking out about 2 feet. I was using it to hold up my fencing material. I'm not doing that now so I hammered the pins in almost all of the way. I am going to leave a few inches in case I decide to add another level or two.

Spring Again

Leave a reply

It’s that time of year again. In North Carolina Spring has come pretty early. This year I am expanding my backyard garden space. Doubling in fact. I purchased 6 more 8’ timbers and am adding a section immediately next to the existing garden.
You may recall that when I did the original section I turned over the top foot of soil, tilled and added a garden mix from my local supplier and tilled again. I also had a week off from work which I don’t have this year. This time I cut the grass as low as my mower goes and am covering with a couple layers of newspaper. After I get the timbers cut and in place I will get another load of garden mix.
I’m ditching the metal fencing this time around. I can admit it was pretty ugly, and didn’t do that great a job. It was something nice for plants to grow up though, so it’ll be missed in that regard. I found a nice white picket fence that’s not too expensive, something like this fence.

Shopping Day

Leave a reply

Today was a shopping day. I found a friend willing to let me borrow his truck and made good use of it.

First I did my shopping at Lowes:

  • Top Soil
  • Compost
  • Gutters
  • Flush Valve
  • Bevy of plants
  • Mailbox Post

I needed 8 bags of topsoil and 6 bags of compost. Those along with the gutters and mailbox post are just too much for my Civic. After I got it all home I didn't have much time to do anything other than unload it and put the mailbox post in.

Next I picked up a friend and we went to pick up a half ton of white river rock. We placed it on the path as planned and it looks pretty good.

After the rocks we loaded up with leaves. In my town during the fall there's a truck that goes around vacuuming up leaves for the city. They get shredded a bit then dumped into huge piles, free for whoever wants them. When I worked at Morning Glory Farm we used to take a big trailer and fill it for mulching the plants. I only had enough time to dump the leaves into the yard before returning the truck. I'll cover the area where the raspberries are tomorrow.

Seed Starting

Leave a reply

I began seeding this weekend. I started Lettuce, Celery, Chives, Spinach and Onions. To spread out the harvest I planted only about a quarter of my intended crop. I'll keep the seeds indoors until they get their second set of leaves.

I used starter soil. I don't expect it to hurt but I hope it helps.

Spinach

Celery

Lettuce

Chives, Onion