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.