Hallo, ich bin neu hier. Vor kurzem ist meine Freundin in den Garten gekommen. Ich bin von Handel ein Zimmermann, deshalb habe ich beschlossen, ihr diese Zedernhöhle Gemüsepflanzer zu ihrem 30. Geburtstag zu bauen. Ich bin mir nur unklar in meinen nächsten Schritten, soweit will. Ich muss immer noch in den Standort ziehen und es ablecken.
Welche Schritte sollte ich so weit unternehmen, dies relativ kosteneffizient zu füllen. Sollte ich auch das ganze Gras entfernen, sobald ich es in die Box eingesetzt habe? Vielen Dank im Voraus für die Hilfe!
Von: ProtectorOfNecks
31 Comments
Soil would be a good first step.
That’s lovely! What a thoughtful and well crafted gift! Depending on what she wants to grow, you may want to add some stakes with support/cross netting on one side. That way, green beans, cucumbers, etc. Can climb and spread when in season. I’d say fill it with tons of tomatoes, fresh herbs and garlic but that’s just my preference. Depending on what part of the country you’re in, you you’ll likely want to look for late fall/winter veg to plant like Kale at this time of the year. Of course , you can still fill it with plants that have already been started, but the height of the growing season is winding down (again depends on where you live) but it’s very nice!!! I’m sure she’ll enjoy it for many years!
I would dig out the grass in the final location, down a couple feet if you can, then lay down hardware cloth and secure it in place (keeps burrowing critters out). You can then flip the grass upside down and use that as your bottom layer. Then fill with a mix of soil, peat moss or similar, and compost. Cover with mulch (or even leaves as the cheapest option) if you aren’t going to be planting immediately. My raised bed is this shape and I also have some paver stones laid in the middle of the U and that’s great. I also enclosed mine in with a fence of 2x2s and hardware cloth to keep the bunnies out
Are your inlaws nice to you? Planters are great to hide a body in.
To fill it cost effectively, use cardboard, sticks, logs on the bottom layer. Even bags of leaves, etc work great! I’d say fill it at least halfway with that stuff. Then add some high quality soil & compost on top and your food to plant! This is a beautiful gift!
Cardboard, compost, large wood, compost, small sticks, compost, soil, alfalfa hay
Whether to remove the grass depends on the type of grass, I’d wager. Kentucky bluegrass will probably die under that much dirt, Bermuda grass will just laugh at you
For dirt, measure out the volume and see if there’s a landscaping supply company near you that sells bulk garden soil. There’s a place by me that has a topsoil/compost mix for $38/cubic yard if you have access to a pickup truck to transport it.
For the final placement, you can remove the grass or lay a few think layers of cardboard down. Then fill the bottom with broken twigs leaves and sticks or a couple bigger branches before you add your sod. You could dump a little fertilizer on the branches to to give them a start, or mix it into the dirt
All suggestions are awesome. I usually mix sand with my soil. Cheaper and helps promote good drainage. I’ve had raised beds for about 8 years now. I love them! I have a dedicated asparagus bed, tomato, cucs, strawberries, peppers, pumpkin, and squash. Then just galvanized buckets for anything else (lettuce, watermelon, etc). Good look. Looks great!
You can do large branches and even logs along the bottom. Bales of hay will help lower the cost. Fill them half way with straw, then the rest with soil.
Check out hugelkultur using tree trimmings and yard and kitchen waste to fill before adding straw and then soil. This sill cut down soil expense and reuse thing to give a healthier soil.
Then make a list of wants for foods you love and grow those ! Have fun.
Some advice based on mistakes.
* dig out all the grass under it. (there’s downsides to cardboard and rocks).
* around the OUTSIDE periphery, consider burying some metal or plastic “grass border” barriers. Otherwise you’ll get some grass trying to grow up along the inside edge and it will re-root. (but if you don’t, no biggie. I just have to regularly pull grass that managed to grow up 10 inches of soil)
* If this is 50 feet from the house, consider filling the bottom with rotting wood. The wood will become compost, encourage biodiversity, hold water, and save money on soil. Just don’t overdo it else termites could choose it as a nest.
* Lay down 2 tarps in your driveway and order 5-8 yards topsoil-compost mix.
* DON’T put soil directly against the cedar. staplegun a few layes of landscape fabric to all wood that will touch soil. It’s extra effort, but your wonderful creation will last more years. 🙂
I would do cardboard over grass first. You can use landscaping staples to hold it down. Then, I’d probably put some decent-sized branches, followed by smaller sticks, then straw, compost, manure, and quality topsoil. Then, water in and let it settle. Add more of the soil/compost/manure, if needed.
It’s my version of the Hugelkultur method. I’ve used it to create ornamental borders and raised beds.
Did some one put something in my drink, is this an optical illusion? AI maybe???
Seems odd that the bed is floating or at least appears to be floating above the ground.
Edited to add, you may want to run a line of gravel along the bottom like where the wood would be touching the ground. It might help keep moisture off it for a longer life of the wood.
Vegetables
With this volume, call a soil/compost place and see what their smallest bulk deal is. It may likely be the cubic yard and you’ll cut the soil cost way down. If it’s bigger than that, like a truck bed, that’s still just a bit more than that volume I think.
I’m not sure about filling it halfway with cardboard and stuff. You’ll want good soil for a good 1.5 feet absolute minimum I’d say. Below that, yeah the stuff they said.
Staple hardware cloth to the bottom to impede gophers, moles and voles from getting in.
Put down a thick layer of cardboard to smother grass then put yard waste, leaves, grass clippings, compostable household items, newspapers at bottom, then fill with a quality half compost and half soil mix to about 4 inches from the top. Didn’t use junk soil from the big box stores, find a local company that makes their own.
I like the description for filling from here:
[vigo instruction sheet](https://www.vegogarden.com/blogs/academy/how-to-fill-raised-garden-beds-and-save-money)
Basically, the bottom can be almost any organic brown matter. Not certified organic – but something made of vegetation or living things. I’ve used crumpled up newspapers. Sticks, leaves, even boxes.
Then you add the upper 8” or so with garden soil and/or compost. Mound up and top- it’s all going to depress and you’ll want to add a few new yards every year. You deeper amounts of Soil for root veggies and less for lettuces and strawberries.
An interesting and helpful discussion about which way to orient the garden beds for optimal sun exposure. [https://www.reddit.com/r/Permaculture/comments/15gbi7g/can_someone_walk_me_through_the_logic_of_raised/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Permaculture/comments/15gbi7g/can_someone_walk_me_through_the_logic_of_raised/)
Layers of cardboard on the bottom, logs and sticks, wood chips from a tree service company (free), composted cow manure, lawn clippings, leaves in the fall, composted chicken manure, kitchen scraps, coffee grounds, banana peels, old bananas chopped up smashed up eggs smell, a good helping of vermiculite and some perlite. Layer it all in, wet it down, layer some more clippings and compost, and let it break down until spring. It will settle in and probably need some more cpmpost/manure/ vermiculite to top dress bc it sinks, but she will be off to a great start. Gorgeous work you did also!
As a gardening person, this is an amazing gift (!!) but I would want to make all those decisions myself, personally, and not have them made for me as part of the gift. So, I would vote to give it to her as-is (as we see it here) and let her decide how to fill it/what substrates/plant species to fill it with and where to place it based on her interests/what she wants to grow and how much sun you get where it will be located, etc etc. You could give her a gift card to a garden center to go with it though if you were wanting to buy her the dirt, etc.
Again this is a great gift!!
Check out [keyhole gardening](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyhole_garden?wprov=sfti1#)! This build is literally perfect for that, I’m jealous!
Can you share the plans for this? I wanted to do something similar in my greenhouse.
I’m sure you know this being a carpenter but lots of places give away wood chips and other compost for free! That plus different clay % in the different sections would be really cool, certain plants like more loamy sandy soil while others like high clay while some even like rocky environments
Might I recommend…. Plants?
Or puppies. Either or.
If she wants to do cucumbers you should do an archway in the center so they can vine on it
Usually soil. 🙃
Gopher wire!
Line it with some water permeable weed barrier so that grass doesnt grow up into it, the material and weight of the soil on top should easily smother it so no digging required. it will also keep the soil in.
Check craigslist posts for fill dirt and also local horse farmers/boarders as they often have excess manure/bedding piles that have been composting and makes great soil. Also if there are mushroom or mint farms in your area, you may be able to get free compost from them, they usually have tons of it, its a biproduct of those crops, mint gets juice extracted then they have huge compost piles of the mint pulp, and mushrooms also break down materials as part of their growth and the compost left doesnt have the nutrients the mushrooms need but works great for growing plants.
Most free fill dirt is gonna have rocks and sticks and stuff so you can either make a sifting screen with some wood and some hardware cloth, or you can use it as is if you dont care, but I would use the fill dirt for the bottom half, then compost on top.
Or if you dont want to deal with all that mess contact your local landscape supply where they will offer all sorts of different top soil and potting soil mixes, composts and other stuff you can buy by the yard and they usually can even deliver them, and you can look up on google how to calculate how many yards of material you need.
Great job with the build! A couple suggestions. Once this thing is full, it is not going anywhere even if you want to. So you can just cut out the stakes and have an easier time. Staple hardware cloth underneath to avoid any gopher etc problems. And lay down a few layers of high quality weed block underneath (not the cheap black plastic). I thought that was unnecessary since I wouldn’t expect weeds to go up in but now I am constantly in war with the nearby shrubs sending their roots into my nutritious soil inside the beds.
Maybe cut the sod out and turn it upside down but it looks great