As I mentioned in a previous post, I decided to replace the top 8″ in both of my raised garden beds because of not-so-good veggie yields the past 2 years. This is one task I was not looking forward to as I would have to remove the dirt one wheelbarrow at a time. The whole process of filling up those beds one wheelbarrow at a time 2 years ago was a long, labor-intensive one that I was so glad to be done with. And here I would be doing it again. Removing 8″ from each equals about 27.5 cubic feet total.
The one thing I had on my side was a fairly warm February here in Alabama. At least I could get out and prep the garden and get it ready for early crops without freezing. This is what the garden looked like last May.
And so I started removing dirt from the beds on January 29th.
I used my small electric tiller to break up the hard dirt to make it easier to shovel out.
My arched trellis is not hard to remove. The CPVC pipe just slides into pipe straps I’ve screwed to the inside top trim, so I don’t have to unscrew anything to remove it. But I didn’t remove it when tilling the left bed, and this is what happens when you get the tiller too close to a trellis you’re too lazy to remove. Fortunately, it was a fairly each fix. I just cut off the bottom 2 “rows” of wire to get rid of the mangled mess.
I hadn’t planned on removing my raised corner herb garden, but as I was working my way towards it, the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to get rid of this one and build a new one using cedar. I used treated wood with the one I built, and as you can see in the picture below that was taken last year, I painted it with outdoor paint that I’m pretty sure is toxic. Who knows… I didn’t even look to see.
Raised, painted herb garden gone:
And then I cut down the corner post of the herb garden that had my watermelon birdhouse on top.
The birdhouse was purchased at Michael’s, and even though I coated it with spar urethane, it broke apart easily when the post came down. It also seemed to attract ants last year, which is something I’m trying to avoid this year.
I was going to replant my 2 lavender plants and 3 coneflowers, but if there was an issue with fungal wilt in the soil, I didn’t want to chance putting any of it back. So I just {reluctantly} threw out the coneflowers, repotted my healthiest lavender plant, and threw my rosemary and other lavender plant close to our property line in a mound of soil to try to preserve it for a spot I want to clear out later this month for a new flowerbed area.
Once the soil was removed, it was time to start mixing the new soil. I decided to use Mel’s Mix from the square foot gardening book: 1/3 peat moss, 1/3 vermiculite, and 1/3 blended compost. I didn’t have any compost yet, and the only compost available for purchase right now was from Lowe’s: cow manure compost and mushroom compost. So I just mixed those 2 equally for the blended compost. The book recommends using compost that has 5 different things that have been composted, but these 2 will have to do for this year. I plan to build a compost station sometime this year.
My first stop was Home Depot for the peat moss and vermiculite. Thank goodness the vermiculite is super light (as long as it’s dry). This was supposed to be enough of both for just one bed. Vermiculite isn’t cheap. Each bag was $20. 🙁 But this is my last-ditch effort to have a high-yielding garden, so I’m investing the money and time.
Peat moss, vermiculite, and compost for just one garden bed (replacing just 6-7″ of soil):
Unloading the stuff is a pain, especially the compost bags.
I used a small, plastic garbage can (3 or 5-gallon) to measure the ingredients and poured them into my wheelbarrow to mix, using a small handheld garden rake. One can each of vermiculite and peat moss, and half a can each of the composts. I used a painting mask over my nose and mouth because the peat moss and vermiculite are both “fluffy” and easily blow around in the wind while measuring out and mixing. The book says not to mix on a windy day, but that seems to be all we had lately, so I didn’t have a choice.
Once I had an empty bag of peat moss, the mixing went a LOT faster. I mixed a batch in the bag using my small garden while raising up the different sides around the bag to help “fold in” the ingredients. Once the mix looked fairly uniform, I’d pour it into my wheelbarrow and mix another batch. I saved 2 of these peat moss bags for future mixing!
The whole process was stretched out over almost a month’s time because I wasn’t able to work on this task for an entire day at a time. It was more like an hour or two here and there, and when it rained I couldn’t do anything. I finished with this around February 21st.
On March 5, I added the screws on the top trim for my grid, spacing them about 12 3/4″ apart since I had 115″ x 51.5″ (9.5 feet x 4.25 feet) to work with in each bed. After adding the screws, I went around the top trim and added a fresh coat of stain, painting the screws also so they wouldn’t be an ugly tan color. And on March 6th, I added my grid (which is just soft garden twine) and put my trellis back into place. The garden is ready for planting!
