Building the Raised Beds

I have yet to meet my established garden neighbor to the south, but I’ve checked out her methods and she has most of her veg planted in raised beds. The book How to Grow More Vegetables by John Jevons details a “double-dig” method of how to actually construct the raised beds by tilling, aerating and working compost into the soil. I started by digging a strip down about 12-inches and placing it over one the side. I then aerated the bottom of the strip and worked in a couple shovels full of horse manure (1 “scoop” for $10). Then I moved the top 12-inches from the next row on top of the manure. And so on, and so on. The aeration of the soil and addition of the manure is what actually builds the up from the earth. I’ve included a few pictures of the method and final product. It took me a full weekend to build five beds and it was utterly exhausting, but a beautiful way to spend the weekend outdoors and pretty darn rewarding once it was all done. Well, at least a third is done…

dig a strip down 12-inches

horse manure worked in 12-inches into the soil

Working the manure into the bed

Three completed beds

SEEEEDLINGS!!!!

It was only after I planted the carrot and lettuce seeds that my mom offered these words of wisdom – “the smaller the seeds, the harder they are to grow”. Super. The carrot and lettuce seeds were teensy tiny, but after a week most of them popped up. They came up in little clumps because I put a few seeds (4-5) in each little seed cup. The book says to thin out your seeds by plucking out the non-winners to allow room for the healthy seed to grow bigger, but that just seemed wasteful and a tad fascist for my garden ideals. So instead I transplanted these seedlings into a larger round tub with more space.  I carefully took the seedlings from the cup, brushed off the dirt around the roots and kinda fanned the clump out into a semi-row. Where did I get this idea? Who knows – but it sounded brilliant at the time. It proved to be much trickier than I planned. The stems on these seedlings are seriously thin – it was like replanting a strand of hair. Pretty tough.

I had faith in all this because I purchased a secret weapon from Gramlings Seed Store. A local place on South Monroe Street that when you pass through the open air entrance, makes you feel as though you’ve taken a Quantum Leap into 1957. The smell took me back to all those hardware/garden stores my parents brought (drug) me to as a kid.  The kinds of places where no matter where you wandered there was absolutely nothing cool to play with. But this trip to Gramlings had a purpose - I was on a mission to find worm castings! Known in the gardening world as “black gold”. The way folks talk about worm castings you would think they were Godiva Chocolates. “Oh man, those worm castings…hmm, hmm, hmm…” I didn’t really understand what worm castings were or what they did for the soil, but garden peer pressure took over and I had to have some. I purchased 3 pounds of worm castings for 25 dollars. You’d think there would be some real gold in there for that price, but sadly no. Worm castings are basically worm poops. Organic matter (leaves, kitchen scraps, paper, etc) goes into a container with some worms (Red Wigglers, usually) and then after the worms have eaten and digested everything you harvest the castings. This strikes me as very similar to horse/cow manure, but on a much more inefficient scale.

Days later the seedlings are doing great! Transplanting did not kill them. They are outside now and receiving around three hours of indirect sunlight. I’m hoping they grow to be a little sturdier before moving them to the plot.

Carrot/Lettuce Seedlings in Soil Mixture plus Worm Castings