So we have now lined the beds with weed fabric and started to fill the beds with a growing mixture of Vermiculite, Perlite, Peat Moss & Compost (various types like plant based, chicken & steer.)
This is the most expensive part of the project, costing more than the beds & hoop houses themselves, but luckily one that will not have to be repeated for quite some time. I never thought that dirt would cost so much!
Hopefully we will finish filling the beds today then mark the growing squares off. For any of you interested in reading about Square Foot Gardening there's a really good website/blog I found called My Square Food Garden.
First Hunter & Dakota were helping put in a 1/2 a big bale of Peat Moss & 1 extra big bag of compost. Then we mixed that up and put on some Lime, Vermiculite & Perlite.
Miss Molly wanted to help also...
This is the most expensive part of the project, costing more than the beds & hoop houses themselves, but luckily one that will not have to be repeated for quite some time. I never thought that dirt would cost so much!
Hopefully we will finish filling the beds today then mark the growing squares off. For any of you interested in reading about Square Foot Gardening there's a really good website/blog I found called My Square Food Garden.
First Hunter & Dakota were helping put in a 1/2 a big bale of Peat Moss & 1 extra big bag of compost. Then we mixed that up and put on some Lime, Vermiculite & Perlite.
Just as a side note... Aren't the mountains in the photo below really pretty?
Miss Molly wanted to help also...
Once that was all put on we found it easier to just start mixing it up with out hands...
Next step... grids & planting (that's the part I'm looking foward to!)
P.S. I'm putting the weird photos of Hunter here because eventually he may learn a lesson to not be a dork when I'm trying to take photos...
Looking good! Great to have help doing such a big project. And yes, the Mel's Mix was the most expensive part of my project also. You have to go WAY back into my blog to see the pics, but we had 5 yards of mixed compost delivered and used shovels to mix in 12 bags of vermiculte with 10 bales of peat moss. Three of us did it on a huge tarp in my drive way, the used wheelbarrows to move it 20 feet to the beds. Took all day to fill 150 SF 15 inches deep. So glad all I have to do is add compost every time I plant, though some settling has happened in 3 years. I could stand to add 6 inches to each bed. May do that this fall. Great work!
ReplyDeleteI saw the photos! (Your blog has been very helpful.)... the thought of even adding 1 inch in a few years of the mix is daunting ... the memory of yesterday's mixing is still too fresh :-)
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments & advice. I'm looking at the plan again moving things around.
I nixed the asparagus & put one row of artichokes in with the strawberries as a total experiment. The bed is mostly for the strawberries since we live so far north that's going to be their permanent home.
As for the corn I'm not sure what to do. That's the hottest part of yard and I'm doubting it will grow at all up here in time to harvest anything. I think I'm chalking that one up to an experiment also.
Thanks for the additional advice on the seed. Do you have anyway you prefer to store seed from year to year? Unless I have a huge garden in the entire back yard all dedicated to one or two crops I doubt I will ever use up an entire seed packet of anything...
Thanks again for reading my blog!