Raised beds...

3 hour project for a Saturday afternoon, building a 25 sq ft raised bed. Consists of cedar and pine planks screwed to corner stakes with stainless steel screws. The bed is 10 feet long by 2 1/2 feet wide and I will most likely use it for carrots and other root vegetables.

25 sq ft raised bed (April 4th, 2009)

I spread out about 2 inches of the free leaf compost I get from the town composting system, then covered that with a heavy layer of newspaper to act as a weed preventer.



Another couple inches of leaf compost and that is it for today. I will eventually fill the remaining 12 inches of this bed with a mushroom soil mix from my local garden supply yard, Primex Garden Center




I used salvaged wood that I have been saving for about a year, and together with the free compost and newspapers, the only cost of this raised bed will be the price of the mushroom soil mix... probably about $25. So the gardenomics on this project will mean very low production cost considering this bed should give me at least five years of use.

An interesting side note... this area used to be a bed of Hostas. I dug them up at the start of this project and put them out at the curb. I placed a curbside alert ad on Craig's List, and before this raised bed was finished all of the Hostas were gone!