Here’s a reminder of what my old garden spot looked like:
Two weeks ago we had a garage sale and while I sat in the garage helping customers, Darren cleared my garden spot! What a relief. I didn’t know how I was going to find time to do that.
Then he built the beds for me too! (I bought kits from Aldi and totally expected to do it myself..so what a great surprise!)
I drove to a local greenhouse and filled my minivan with bags of stuff.
Part 1: Compost
To save money I used the modified Mel’s mix talked about here. It uses twice as much compost since that is the least expensive and most nutritive part of the mix. If I had my own compost, it would have saved $13 a box or $52 total. I had to buy it and it was unusal. More like fine mulch. They called it cotton something compost. I had never heard of it before. I want to start a compost bin now to get the cost of filling the next year’s bins down. We will need to clear some land to build them…it feels a little overwhelming.
Part 2: Vermiculite
Each bed ended up with 2 cubic feet each of compost and 1 cubic feet each of vermiculite and peat moss.
Part 3: Peat Moss
It cost $35 to fill each bed, which sounds decent until you multiply that by 4. And I have 4 more beds that we didn’t build this year! I hope to clear more land for them next year, but went ahead and bought them now so they would all match. When they told me the total for all the stuff, I couldn’t help but think about all the FOOD I could buy for that much money. But I reminded myself that this was an investment that I wouldn’t have to redo for 10+ years. Plus, I like the idea of having a garden :).
Mixing by hand
My plan was to mix everything in the bins with a shovel. But that was tricky to mix it well and not spill it out everywhere. That dirt was like gold gravel to me and I didn’t want to lose a speck of it. I resorted to just digging in with my arms and stirring it up by hand. It was fun in a “I hope my Mama doesn’t catch me doing this” kind of way. And then I remembered, I am the mama :).
Ready to Plant
I finished the bins just before dark. Planting will have to wait for another day.
Want free marigolds to repel bugs? Come on over! And I have compost, too from my chickies, next time you need some…
Ooh, I’d love marigolds. And some composting lessons. I’m clueless about what
kind of thingie to build and how to do it. We always had compost bins growing
up, but just threw whatever we wanted in it. Never aired it or watered it and
it would take years and years to break down.
I shall link composting info for you in a bit. Mother Earth News…
Just curious if you are going to add a 4×4 grid to the boxes?
Anita, we did add a temporary grid with wool yarn and green frog tape. It was enough for planting, but the wind and rain made quick work of it. I’m considering my options for a more permanent grid.
Let me know when you figure out a good way to mark the grids. My rope will suffice for this year, but I am not fond of it! Looking forward to seeing your beds!
I am always blown over by the cost of our garden in the spring – even seeds which are only a few dollars a packet add up when you are growing a wide variety of items (although we do share seeds with 3 other families to help with the cost.) We fill our boxes with something called “mushroom compost.” It is a lot cheaper than mixing your own soil and it grows AMAZING fruit and vegetables! We get ours direct from a farmer who even delivers it to our house, and for just over a hundred dollars we filled four 6 x 6 boxes, a pumpkin patch, and had a little left over for flower gardens. It might be worth looking into when you are ready to fill your next boxes.
I want to try square foot gardening too! Your boxes look great. I look forward to hearing your comments come harvest time to see if you liked this method better than row gardening.