Sunday, March 24, 2013

Raised Bed Garden (Part 2)

Want to meet your neighbors?  Build a garden!  We had a couple of our neighbors come over to see what we were up to.  Turns out our neighbors are anxious to see how it turns out too!

Today we will show you how we dug the holes, laid down landscaping cloth and cemented the beds in permanently.  Lots of work to be done before we start planting!


If you visited us last week for part 1 you saw the beds raised up in the air on their legs.  We've dug holes and sat them down to see how they will look in the above picture.  I like it!
We rented a one man auger to dig the holes.  The fee was right at $80 but oh so worth it in the end.  I wanted to try to dig holes too.....yeah, I'm just a tiny bit too short to man this one man auger. Eeeek!
When my honey started to dig the first hole it looked all nice and pretty like you see here.  That was not the case moving forward!
Um, anyone want to buy a rock farm?  We wanted to "plant" the legs about 12" in the ground.  With all the rocks, that was not happening!
We had to take 9" off each of the legs to have the base touch the ground.  There is no digging rocks people. Wow!  Oh, do you see the green paint on the leg up there?  We sat the bed in its place and then used spray paint to mark on the ground where to dig the holes.  It still wasn't a perfect science, but hey, it worked.
Here's the bed sitting down in the hole ready for cement.  We dug as much loose dirt out of the hole as we could so that the cement could get a good hold. 
We originally bought 2 bags of cement for each leg.  Since our holes ended up being much more shallow than we first planned for we only used a 1/2 bag per leg.  Good news is, Lowe's will take back what you don't need.  We ended up using (7) bags of cement that were $3.46 per bag with was about $24.22 total.

NOTE: No need to pre-mix your cement, just add some water to the hole, add cement, stir, mix and more water until you have the consistency you want.  We used a wooden paint roller handle and a shovel to stir and mix.
Before we cemented everything down permanently, we laid down the landscaping cloth ($29.98 for 300 sq ft roll) in hopes that weeds wont be bothering our little garden.  The wind was blowing like 60 and we had a big time keeping it on the ground, but we did it.  Since our little garden area will have walk ways, we made sure the cloth covered those areas too.  Join us next week for the dirt and the planting.

Raised Bed Garden (Part 1)
Raised Bed Garden (Part 3)

It doesn't have to be done all at once.  It is a slow process in the works! C-ya next time!

I'm Linking to:

Sunday
Under the Table and Dreaming by Stephanie Lynn

The Self Sufficient Home Acre 
The Chicken Chick
 
Monday
Craft-O-Maniac
Between Naps on the Porch
DIY Home Sweet Home 

Keeping it  Simple
The Dedicated House
Skip to my Lou 

Tuesday
Not Just a Housewife
My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia

Wednesday
Lil’ Luna
Clean and Scentsible
Lady Behind the Curtain

Thursday
Bloom
Two Yellow Birds Decor

The Busy B's

Friday
 
Tatertots and Jello
Joyful Stamper
Craftionary

Diana Rambles

Saturday
Positively Splendid
I Heart Nap Time

Or So She Says 
Your Homebased Mom 
What's Cooking with Ruthie 

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9 comments:

  1. They seem to be coming along really well. I just built another 5' x 8'out of scrap lumber I pulled from my neighbors trash. It will be in next weeks post!
    http://theredeemedgardener.blogspot.com/2013/03/cord-in-bucket-how-to-store-extension.html

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  2. I am your new neighbor (follower) here in blogland and want to know how it turns out. I would love you to come link this at my Pin Me Linky Party!! That will help me to remember to keep up with the steps.

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  3. It's going to be great. No need to be in a rush, it's too early to plant anything! I only added mint to my raised bed garden for now. I'm looking forward to see more, though.

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  4. Awesome job! I am hoping to get some landscaping cloth down this year too...or at least some black plastic to try and deter the weeds :-)

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  5. Great job! I am starting to get more and more into gardening. Yours looks like it is on its way to success. I don't have quite so much room but you are inspiring! Here's to a bountiful harvest :) Krista @ http://ahandfulofeverything.blogspot.com

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  6. My husband just built me raised garden beds as well and they DID bring out the neighbors, lol. When we were measuring them one came over to ask what we were doing and when we told him he gave us all the wood for it! Crazyness. I am your newest fallower. Can't wait to see how it all turns out.

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  7. Awesome job! Thanks so much for sharing this on The Creative HomeAcre Hop!
    Hope you can join us again this week!
    http://www.theselfsufficienthomeacre.com/2013/03/the-creative-homeacre-hop-9.html

    ReplyDelete
  8. Such a great idea.....Thank you for sharing with the Clever Chicks Blog Hop this week; I hope you’ll join us again!


    Cheers,
    Kathy Shea Mormino

    The Chicken Chick

    http://www.The-Chicken-Chick.com

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  9. Can't wait to see more! Congrats to y'all!

    ReplyDelete

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