Another Raised Bed.

We had a bit of an issue with our fence: it fell over when I slipped down the side of it.  The fence was dividing 2 parts of our property so that the previous owners could keep dogs and not have to fence the entire property, the part that we now keep the chickens in has not really been used much.  We do not have any dogs so this will no longer be an issue for us and as a result of that I have decided to use what parts of the fence that are not rotten to make another raised bed garden.  This will be the first part of a project to make several raised beds and clean up the property a bit and make it more usable, I will post each part as I complete it.

I pulled the fence down, then pulled it apart and removed all the nails.  The wood was old and each board had a lilttle bit of rot in it that had to be removed but I got enough wood out of it to make a good sized garden bed, I decided to make it 2 boards high so that it would sit higher than the second raised bed we are planning to put between it and the sun.

Day One I finished pulling the fence apart and trimming the wood, there was not much time left after that as it took a while to clean it up where I wanted to saw, I don't like my tools being damaged by badly prepared wood.  I had to make all the stakes that I would be hammering in to the ground and make some of the trimmed wood the same length so that the sides would all match up.  I also marked out the outline of the raised bed with builders line so I could get started early the next day, I took no photos sorry.

 The photo below is where I am getting the topsoil from, when the septic system was improved here the guys that were digging it all out put the topsoil in one pile.  The mound in this photo with the nasturtium on it was all nice topsoil, there is a little wood and shingle mixed in there but I think it will be quite usable.

When I finished the original design it didn't feel strong enough so I reinforced it and made bays for the greenhouse covers to sit on in case we need to use them, these bays are also chicken coop compatible so we can fence the chooks into a bay or more between crops to dig around and fertilise it a bit using the squares from the current chicken run.

Day Two I had the basic raised bed made and 2 bays reinforced, I also added a little topsoil in there too as I wanted to get an idea of how long it would take me to finish the job.  By this stage I had 2 days left before it was supposed to rain, I really wanted to have the raised bed full of dirt before the rain so it would get a good soaking before we plant anything

Day Three and I am calling it finished for phase 1.  I finished the raised bed off and it feels really solid now, we do have to add a bag of potting mix and some blood & bone to each bay yet and I think the chooks will help us out with some fertiliser but its finished for the most part.

I think it turned out ok, I will be adding to it later to make it look nicer but I will get the second raised bed finished first and do some fence improvements.  I also will be adding a rail where the 2 concrete posts are, but I will finish the second raised bed first so that they have more support.

Might do some weeding tomorrow before we put the potting mix in actually.

Part of the Plan: CEB Press

I have a house design in mind that borrows somewhat from the Earthship design but I will not be using the rammed earth tyres because of the huge amount of labour involved.  I am planning to make it out of compressed earth bricks because of the great thermal mass and free price of them, they are also considered structural masonry so there's a strength factor too.  There will only be 2 - 3 of us building the house so it will be a long process, we may have to make the bricks one year and put it up the next depending how long it takes us.

I have seen a few press designs and I don't think it will be a problem building a press from them, I am probably going to go with a CINVA type ram, perhaps slightly modified.  The hard part will be making it flexible enough to be able to make 2 - 3 kinds of bricks as well as roofing tiles (I hope).

I am planning to mount the press to a bracket of some kind that will be mounted on the front of the digger, It should provide a very solid base for it as well as keeping it mobile enough to move to where the dirt is.  I will mount it with linchpins or something for easy removal.  If we decide we cant cope with the pressing of the bricks we will also have the capacity for using the hydraulics off the digger to power the mechanics of the press

I am planning to have a go at making the press this summer if I can find enough scrap to put one together.  I have some of the parts already but I will need to find some decent steel plate before I can make too much progress, I will see what I can come up with when summer rolls around.  I would really like to get the press done before we find a property if possible so I can work out what kind of labour will be involved.  If we get the house plan sorted out somewhat we should also be able to estimate the number of bricks needed and extrapolate how long it will take to make everything.  We should also be able to work out how much cement will be required for the CEB bricks so that will help us to get a more accurate idea of price.