Saturday 7 February 2015

Raised Bed renewal - Work in Progress

Now that the weather has improved a bit, I have made a start on my raised bed project. On Friday it was cold, bright and sunny, but dry, so the conditions were ideal for a bit of Garden Engineering!

Actually, the task is not quite as simple as you might think. Because I am using those really thick sleepers, I will eventually need to move the whole set of raised beds slightly. Doing this first one entails shifting its furthest edge by 60cm. I spent the morning lifting and removing paving-slabs and the cement that was supporting them, and then shovelling sideways the contents of the existing bed.


As you can see, I have laid the first layer of timber roughly in place, and I will do the final adjustments some other time. I will be fixing the pieces together with 6" angle-brackets. By the way, sawing two of the 2.4 m sleepers in to halves to make the end-pieces turned out not to be as major a task as I had feared. Luckily I have a very efficient saw, which went through them fairly easily.

In the photo below you can see that I have brought the near edge forward by the width of one paving-slab (40cm) plus 20cm.


I expect the neighbours think I have buried a corpse. The pile of soil certainly looks like a grave at present!


When I eventually get the second layer of timber on, the overall height will be 40cm. I will augment the existing soil with the contents of my compost bins to bring it up to a decent level. That will be another significant job. I don't want to do too much all at once, otherwise my Fibromyalgia will give me a hard time.

Earlier I mentioned the weather. Fine it may have been, but it was also incredibly windy. So windy in fact that it ripped to shreds one of my plastic mini-greenhouses:


That photo was taken AFTER I had rescued it from the other end of the garden, despite it having been weighted-down with four bricks!

11 comments:

  1. Such a wide board will be really nice when it is done. You can sit on it. I really debated whether to do that when I made this garden, but elected to go cheaper. Well and give more space to the garden itself. I couldn't move my beds by a bit. I elected to have narrow paths and there is no extra room for boards.

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    1. I hadn't thought about it, but since you mention it, I reckon the idea of being able to perch on the edge of the bed is a very attractive one!

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  2. A lot of work but so worth it in the end. Glad the weather has got very slightly milder (or is that me wishful thinking?)

    All the best Jan

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    1. I was doing some more work on the project today. No sooner had I got all the tools (including electric drill, screwdriver etc) outside, than it began to rain and I had to bring them all in again! But yes, at least it was less cold.

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  3. It's great that you can get started on your new beds this early. Those sleepers looks so solid & sturdy - they are going to make a wonderful raised bed, both functionally & visually. Like Daphne, I would have liked nice chunky boards like that too, but opted for the cheaper, 2" (5cm) thick boards instead.

    And that's too bad about the greenhouse - good thing you have some new ones on the way!

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  4. Those new beds are going to be fantastic, real raised beds. The wind has certainly been horrendous this year.

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  5. Now that greenhouse may benefit from a new cover. Wilkinson's have them in if you're interested. The beds are going to be fabulous, so sturdy, they should last a long time. Worth all the hard work but go careful and don't overdo it.

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  6. That does look like hard work, but the beds will be nice and deep when you get finished. And those timbers look nice and sturdy too. I need to add some depth to my beds, but the thought of the work involved has my back aching ahead of time!

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    1. Dave, I am only doing one of the beds at present. I may decide to do the others later on. It's a lot of work, and a lot of money to do them all!

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  7. You've done a good job on your new raised bed project. I know these things always seem to take longer than expected. It looks a great addition to your garden.

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  8. Good progress! I look forward to being able to get out myself. As I was in New Mexico the past few days, I noticed the garden centers there already have the veggie starts out. We're a long time and a couple feet of snow removed from any work being done.

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