I miss California.
Where the growing season is long, the veg variety is plentiful, and it is common place to have vegetable gardens in your front yard.
I have been drooling over the ease and aesthetic of doing a raised planting bed for a year or so. Finally, I had the weather and the sweat to do it. For about $2.40 a block (under $90 total), a shovel, some sand, and obsession, it's done.
How To:
Map out the general area you wish to excavate, using a tape measurer to determine the appropriate diameter of your circle. Mark a center point and mark the circle with spray paint, chalk dust, etc.
Dig. Dig the circle a little deeper and longer than the block. Tamp down the dirt.
Fill with about 2" of sand. Tamp and check for level.
Lay first course (row) of blocks. You may need a hammer and chisel if the last piece doesn't fit perfectly. If so, hold chisel where you want to slice the stone, and hammer until it splits. Careful of the angle at which you hold the chisel as this will effect the direction fo the break.
Using a rubber mallot, check level again and use mallot to adjust where needed.
Lay remaining courses and fill with dirt to help support blocks as you go. As you lay each course, the blocks should be set back from the lower course about 1'2" - 1", receding toward to top. Makes it more stable. These blocks are already cut to fit together as a circle, but can probably be arrange one course high in a straight line.
Fill with dirt to almost the top (almost - to prevent dirt spill over). Plant zone 6A friendly goodies. Watch you 2-year-old shake with glee as she drops the seeds into the dirt.
Note about dirt: Potting soil should be replaced every year, but last year's potting soil is great for planting bed fill. So I dumped it in, added some organic fert, and saved.
What I'm growing: For now? 4 kinds of tomatoes (including some heirlooms and some yellows), orange bell pepper, rhubarb (for all those summer pies!), strawberries, carrots, basil, thyme, and cilantro. What are you growing? What have you had luck with?
Stephanie! Thanks so much for inviting me to your blog. I have missed you!! I have loved reading through this blog. So great. I had to laugh at you talking about putting lavender in cake and crystallizing rose petals...remember when you came over and I was using a hand mixer, and you had no idea those existed? :) I totally love your adventuresome attitude and all that you are learning to do. While you are much more intense than me, I too find great joy in doing projects and beautifying my home. Hazel is so big... and so beautiful! I look forward to reading more. Oh, and I adore you!
ReplyDeleteHere is where I am going to fall of the deep end. Hanging dry wall and caulking seams? Check! Changing knobs and refinishing furniture? Check! Upholstery and curtains and wallpaper? Check! Gardening? ...hopeless. Well, maybe not hopeless but certainly not living up to my parents standards. The only plant I could even really call my own I killed within a matter of weeks. Orchids just aren't good first plants. I should be (justifiably) disinherited by my family.
ReplyDeleteNico and I reap the California bounty (he eats raspberries right of the bush now) but I wonder if you wouldn't do well by building a greenhouse for the off season months?
ahem...off. Poor proof reading. I must have an Engineering degree lying around here somewhere, not an English one.
ReplyDelete