Raised bed progress report

The improved weather over the last few days has finally given me the opportunity to get on with some work on the new raised beds. This is not the sort of work to do when it is cold wet and windy!


The most difficult bit of the task was to get the new bed level and properly lined-up with the others. After a certain amount of judicious raking, shovelling, backfilling and thumping, and with the aid of tape-measure and spirit-level I finally got the timber bedded-in to my satisfaction.

The pieces of timber are held together with steel angle-brackets. I used an electric drill to start off the screw-holes, and then put the screws in with a manual screwdriver. I have found that my electric screwdriver doesn't have the power to insert the 2.5-inch screws into this tough timber. The upper layer of baulks is fixed to the lower layer with a pair of straight 6" brackets, one of which you can see in the photo below at the mid-point of the long side of the bed.

Now I have the task of filling the bed. The soil from the old bed is going to form the bottom layer. Then I am going to add the contents of one of my plastic compost-bins. At this stage I will also add some pelleted chicken manure. Finally I will add a layer of the loam that I bought a few weeks ago. With all that, I ought to be able to grow some decent veggies I think!

I have left 50cm between the new bed and the older one next to it, and in this gap I have laid a layer of 25mm shingle to match the rest of the garden.

Now I have a dilemma. I have enough timber to make one more bed of this pattern - or TWO single-layer beds.... All of the remaining three existing beds are in dire need of replacement, (one is just a pile of soil now) and it might be more sensible to take the second option. After all, it would be easy enough to add the second tier at a later date. I'm going to have think about this.