garden news-hope for the future

GARDEN NEWS-HOPE FOR THE FUTURE

every time i work with youth groups i think there is still hope for the future
i felt this way after working with ws a boy scout who needed to do a project for his eagle scout requirements
he wanted to do garden beds so he reached out to our gardens

now i have helped put several raised beds in school gardens using two layers of concrete blocks
when finished they are there forever until the beds are disassembled 
wood eventually rots

i spoke once with two organic gurus in austin about how safe these were to use in an organic garden
they both said they were safe
the old cinder box had products that could be toxic
concrete blocks are just concrete

so he agreed to do the raised beds in our kids garden which has really been neglected and left to not do much with since the pandemic
i had planned to do one by myself and our volunteers
but him doing it for his project was a win win for us

he did all the  planning and purchasing materials after we reviewed the site and i sent him videos and materials on using concrete blocks for the project

our biggest delay since we started planning on this months ago was the bureaucracy of the boy scouts
every change we made or they recommended had to be reapproved by a line of folks
it felt like at times we were dealing with our local government approval district which takes forever around here to get a project approved

well we finally got approval
ws got all his materials
he got all his friends and family to help with the project
i along with another volunteer helped also
i helped since i had done these before

this is the site where we were building our beds

first we raked down the beds to make them as level as possible
we then add gopher wire that fits under the concrete blocks
gophers love this part of the garden
we have limited our gardening in this spot because of the gophers
wheres bill murray when we need him       

we started in one corner using our first block which we leveled perfectly and used it to work off from to make sure the rest of the beds were level and even

we then  used the first bed to determine where we placed the other two beds so things would be symmetrical

when the beds were all done with two levels of blocks we used rebar in each corner and some along the sides to help hold the bricks in place


this is the finished beds
the two on the right are about 10 ft long and 4 ft wide
the one on the left is 8 ft long and 4 ft wide

we decided not to fill it with commercial garden soil but instead we made our own soil 
sort of lasagna style
so first we added two layers of cardboard


then we added a layer of limbs old plants waiting to be chipped up by our chipper
then a layer of mulch was added
then a layer of chicken compost from our chicken coop that has been composting for a year
then a layer of garden soil that i had dug up from my garden plot
then a layer of unfinished compost form our large compost pile
then a layer of my garden soil
then another layer of our unfinished compost


then in the holes in the concrete blocks we filled half of the blocks with my garden soil then the top half with eb stone organic raised bed soil


then to top off the bed we added about 6 inches of eb stone raised bed soil which has all the ingredients you need to get plants growing
until
all the lasagna breaks down 
into real real rich soil

in the concrete block holes we will plant strawberries along one side of the beds
on the other side we will put some flowers and herbs and veggies like onions carrots and beets

in the beds we will plant for the summer green beans a yellow pear tomato sweet 100 tomato sungold tomato french beans dino kale red russian kale curly kale cucumelon baby cukes swiss chard and red pepper

this fall we will plant sweet peas along with broccoli kale chard beets carrots lettuces and other veggies

when it is all planted i will post a picture of it when the veggies mature

ws and his friends were a delight to work with
they worked hard

maybe we will call this the hope for the future kids garden

the organicgreen doctor