Raised Bed Adventure Part 2 (Keep an eye on your cell phone)

Our most important job as vegetable gardeners 

is to feed and sustain soil life, 

often called the soil food web, 

beginning with the microbes. 

If we do this, our plants will thrive, 

we’ll grow nutritious, healthy food, 

and our soil conditions will get better each year. 

This is what is meant by the adage ”Feed the soil not the plants.” 

~ Jane Shellenberger, Organic Gardener's Companion: Growing Vegetables in the West

Two beds are done while the largest and a 30 gallon tree pot await. Leaf mulch now covers the area.

Well, the raised beds were constructed (see Part 1) and a location decided upon. But because Bermuda grass is the pain that it is, I knew I'd have to dig the old turf out before even thinking about filling the beds. It made the most sense to dig out a large section of the lawn - larger than the area needed for the beds. 

I knew I'd still be digging this time next year if it was up to me to do the digging. My good friend knew of a man who might be interested in the job. God bless him, he was. He made short work of the job and even hauled away the turf.

And then the storms came. It sleeted, froze, snowed, and iced over the entire yard.

I managed to rescue as many plants as I could fit into the living room.

Then I commenced one of many "research projects" - consulting friends who are successful gardeners, articles, and videos. But the excavation was now a skating rink for a week. 

Powerless - literally - I spent time breaking down cardboard boxes I had gathered in advance of the project. And once the ice and snow melted I fitted the cardboard, placed a border of rectangular cinderblocks to separate the garden from the lawn, located the beds (they looked crooked. I measured and moved and decided that they would always look crooked because nothing is very square - intentionally so in some cases), and began to prepare the "fill."

My friend MGL donated two loads of firewood that had been weathering in her yard (perhaps yards as she remembered moving them at least once and maybe twice from home to home). We loaded the car and I hauled them to the back and fitted them into one layer at the bottom of the beds. They will decay slowly and I will add more soil as the beds settle. 

Then I layered compost and mulch (shredded oak leaves and shredded paper) and more compost and then potting soil. The hope is the lower layers will turn into soil over time as did the wild garden. [The oak leaves came from OC's yard and from my friends DC and JC who have a large yard covered in Live Oaks. They mow the leaves and bag them. The shredded paper is from 3 nights of ridding myself of years of documents/bank statements and the like. I have 6 bags of shredded paper - a lifetime of mulch.]

The top 8 to 10 inches of each bed will be ready for spring planting I hope. It's all an experiment. At some point earthworms are supposed to "show up" and establish residence in the beds. I find it hard to believe they will arrive any time soon without some help. This neighborhood was basically bulldozed down to below the limestone shelf. Even while rescuing native plants from relatively undisturbed fields I have seen nary an earthworm. So I suppose I will import them from the old home place. I may also get some from the vermiculture world. 

I'm not a farmer (although my daddy grew up on a farm) and hardly a gardener. I used to watch what two women in the old neighborhood planted. Mrs. G grew mostly natives and other plants that thrive in our climate. Mrs. R would grow things that "do not grow here." Both had beautiful yards. One would begin her work at dawn. The other also spent hours in the garden, but also employed 4 gardeners. Mrs. R's garden was ever-changing.

I would plant those things I saw in Mrs. G's yard and a few other things that I knew grow here - even as I marveled at Mrs. R's tulips and the short-time non-natives in her festive flowerbeds.

My old yard was composed of black rich sticky clay. I experimented a great deal, but didn't fuss. If a plant didn't die in the first year, there was a chance for it. After the third year it would usually a have developed sufficient root system to begin to look like something. I was and am a fairly lazy gardener. After 30 years there I had managed to grow enough shrubs and trees that I had little sun for a vegetable. And I was lucky to keep the grass mowed. 

This new yard is small 30 x 60 (the old house was on two large lots in the "old town"). There is little to mow now, one tree (a tiny and not-well-established live oak in the front), and a back yard that was bare save for the dreaded Bermuda Grass and weeds sneaking in under the back fence. With the help of my friend TM and her landscaping crew we created a bed for wild things in about a third of the yard. The point of that wild garden (a pocket-prairie, if you will) is to encourage proper drainage (and hopefully prevent any unwanted flooding), to invite pollinators, to provide a stop-over for the birds, and to keep me "out of the bars and off the streets" (as in "give me something to do"). The freeze appears to have hit the wild things pretty hard. I suppose we will see what makes it. I have nothing, but time.

The raised beds will be for vegetables and such. That area is about 1/3 of the remaining backyard. The rest of the yard is for Zelda and whatever else we decide to do with it. I suppose we have enough yard left for Bocce* or washers.**

Today I finished filling the smaller two beds. The largest one remains, but I believe I have enough materials to complete it, although I will have to haul one more load of firewood.

Here are the pertinent photos:

The finished excavation. I knew I was going to have to fill the area and cover the soil or I would be tracking mud in the rest of my life and the Bermuda would just move back over. 

The border - old cinder blocks (from the old house) would divide the bed from the grass. One of the raised beds sits off in the wild garden.

I made two trips to locate enough of these blocks (once used to in a failed attempt to keep our escape-artist labby Paddy in the yard). 

It is smart to wear gloves as you never know what you might find. Two of these Rough Earthsnakes were sheltering under the blocks. They are harmless, but we do have snakes in the area that are not.

I wasn't kidding about the storms. This is the area planned for the beds. Now it was iced over. Zelda was not amused.

She doesn't look too happy here either. We were warming up in the car while charging the cell phone. 3+days without power was not fun, but many had it worse than we did.

Ice on the Aspidistra. I know. Aspidistra is not a native, but it is part of my "memory garden" selection.

All of these plants in the front beds are brown now, except the Yaupon and we will give them some time to see what will recover.

 

Broken ice in the street.

Icicles on the front porch.

"Gardener" heading over to a neighbor's. This was between storms and the street was still "walkable." The next day we had freezing rain that made travel impossible.

Bitty thought the cardboard was for play. We ended up with almost enough to cover the area.

I was encouraged when I saw that 3 varieties of milkweed had sprouted.

After a few days of sun the cardboard went down...

The raised beds went back into place.

Thank heaven for good friends. There seems to have been a good bit of swapping garden stuff around this winter. I have materials from two different friends and one nursery (and we are not even talking about plants yet). Some of my concrete/cinderblock borders and stepping stones from the old place are in another friend's yard. There is no reason to waste.

The compost and soil came from Eldred's Nursery***

Four bags of shredded oak leaves filled the car.

So the layering is supposed to be brown/green/brown green and so forth.**** I basically did...

...layer of logs then compost...then shredded paper or leaves...then compost...then soil...

This is the second on showing logs going in.

Layer of compost (green) over layer of shredded paper (brown) and a thick layer of soil will top this. Then everything will rest and settle. You are supposed to water during this process. Well, it has been raining off and on and I didn't want things to get too soggy, so we will see what the rain does. Also, the compost, leaves, and soil were all damp when we started.  [I also have a bathtub full of water from storm preparedness that I can use to water rather than wasting it - woohoo! - more hauling!]

It was pretty filthy work and I was not wearing gloves while spreading the last layers of dirt and the leaf mulch. [Do as I say...not as I do!]

I thought I was through for the day when I reached for my phone to take a last couple of photos. Oops! No phone! I hoped it wasn't in the middle of one of the raised beds. I finally found it at the bottom of this pile of empty plastic bags. Whew!

So there is one more bed to complete, mulch to cover the beds pending planting, and a month or so of rest as I'm not ready and they aren't ready to plant. Our last chance of frost is in April. But at least the "beds are made" and I can start planning exactly what veggies I want to plant.

[The wild garden will have a few plants added (those sprouting milkweeds and wildflowers my brother shared) and some accessories installed (two bluebird houses, a birdbath, and trellises for vining plants that appear to be sprouting).]

Stay tuned.

NOTES: 

* Bocce - https://www.thespruce.com/what-is-bocce-ball-2736598

** Washers - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washer_pitching

*** Eldred's Nursery - https://www.facebook.com/eldredsnurseryfoundation/

**** Information on building the bed - https://www.instructables.com/How-to-Build-A-Lasagna-Bed/

Post script: My friends sent me a note that they harvested 4 more bags of shredded leaves and then they delivered! I’m set for whenever the week allows. For now, the laundry calls! 

A little work awaits.