My first task was filling the new raised bed. It's been sitting like this for a couple weeks.
After running around town to three different garden centers, I finally had all of my supplies. I like to use a variety of different composts, and no one store had everything I wanted.
That's roughly 900 pounds of soil amendments, but who's counting. (Uh, me, the one who carried them all).
The first thing I did was fill the bottom of the bed with all of the bags of leaves I had tucked under my deck. Some of them were more decomposed than others.
Then it was time to mix everything else together. A giant tarp is a great garden tool. Pile everything on...
...and mix it up.
The trusty snow shovel is great for getting the soil from the tarp to the bed.
There's still room for a little more filling.
There usually is. I do the math, but I never buy as much material as I know I'll need. Oh well, there are a few more bags of compost in the garage. I just need to drag them down the hill and toss them in. Then this bed will be ready for tomatoes.
The bed looks great! You are right in that you will definitely need more to fill it up. I have found that the soil level goes down a lot as it settles, as much as 25%.
ReplyDeleteI think that's one of the things that I dislike the most about the start of the garden season - all that running around getting manure, amendments, compost, mulch, straw. Now that you mention it, I should probably set aside one day just to do the running around and get it over with. Much better than doing it piece-meal over a few weeks.
You are so right. We've had three days of rain, and now the bed looks like it's only half full. Guess there's more running around in my future, too.
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