NS Gearhead
Veteran Member
So the neighbors had a garden last year for the first time, so seeing them having fun with theirs made me want my own. The thing is; we don't have dirt where I am. It's all rock. Raised garden is the way to go.
I've driven by this pile of boards in the woods behind my place for years now. The story goes that when a house was being built in my subdivision some kids stole the boards planning to build a cabin, but they never did. They're probably 10 year old 2x10s. The ones on the bottom were too rotten, but the rest were ok, so here's what I came up with;
16'X4', 1.5' deep.
Lined them with landscape fabric
Got this idea off the web for a strawberry planter; cut slits, heated with a torch, and shoved the wine bottle in there to get the shape.
This was the first load of dirt. 50% topsoil 50% compost
Come to find out the compost they used was from green bins (ment for residential table scraps/ yard waste)... so that's no good. You can't trust that people haven't put weird tings in there.
I used this load to level spots on the lawn. I was going to do this with most of it anyway.
Got a load of normal topsoil and made my own mix. Seafood compost, sheep and cow manure, and peatmoss. I ended up doing 8 shovels of topsoil, 3 of peatmoss, and one bag of compost in the wheel barrow and mixed.
Irrigation timer & short length of hose
Soaker hose loosely placed and tested
Planted! Those are the pre-started tomatoes
Looking a little messy, but I'll have that dirt gone soon and I've got gravel to spread over where it was again... make everything look nice and tidy.
Here are the strawberry barrels. The pipe's 4" and goes down to about 1' before the bottom then capped. I drilled 12 1/16" holes then wrapped in landscape fabric. It'll take about a gallon of water and 15 min to drain. There are 26 strawberry plants between the two barrels.
#1
#2
I've started working on next year's project; a netted in berry orchard. I'm aiming for 4 rows 50' long. Strawberry, blueberry, rasberry and blackberry. Cleared the trees, and I'll de-stump and level at the end of the month when I rent a skid steer.
I've driven by this pile of boards in the woods behind my place for years now. The story goes that when a house was being built in my subdivision some kids stole the boards planning to build a cabin, but they never did. They're probably 10 year old 2x10s. The ones on the bottom were too rotten, but the rest were ok, so here's what I came up with;
16'X4', 1.5' deep.
Lined them with landscape fabric
Got this idea off the web for a strawberry planter; cut slits, heated with a torch, and shoved the wine bottle in there to get the shape.
This was the first load of dirt. 50% topsoil 50% compost
Come to find out the compost they used was from green bins (ment for residential table scraps/ yard waste)... so that's no good. You can't trust that people haven't put weird tings in there.
I used this load to level spots on the lawn. I was going to do this with most of it anyway.
Got a load of normal topsoil and made my own mix. Seafood compost, sheep and cow manure, and peatmoss. I ended up doing 8 shovels of topsoil, 3 of peatmoss, and one bag of compost in the wheel barrow and mixed.
Irrigation timer & short length of hose
Soaker hose loosely placed and tested
Planted! Those are the pre-started tomatoes
Looking a little messy, but I'll have that dirt gone soon and I've got gravel to spread over where it was again... make everything look nice and tidy.
Here are the strawberry barrels. The pipe's 4" and goes down to about 1' before the bottom then capped. I drilled 12 1/16" holes then wrapped in landscape fabric. It'll take about a gallon of water and 15 min to drain. There are 26 strawberry plants between the two barrels.
#1
#2
I've started working on next year's project; a netted in berry orchard. I'm aiming for 4 rows 50' long. Strawberry, blueberry, rasberry and blackberry. Cleared the trees, and I'll de-stump and level at the end of the month when I rent a skid steer.
