Getting my fenced in third of an acre built out with hardware for growing plants is the task at hand at the moment on the farm. With seeds ready to go its time to build out growing beds where we can transfer the seedlings once ready to go outside. We use ten foot 2x6 planks and 2x4 planks, the height of the bed is decided by how many planks tall we build. We decided we want them a little below waist height at the max, and all the way down to around 1 foot for very short beds. It all depends on what we are growing in each bed and that will be the deciding factor to go with a short, medium or tall bed when it comes to transplanting.
It takes around an hour to build one tall bed, they are three feet wide and seven feet long. I use outdoor screws, three and a half inch for the ends and two and a half for the 2x4 and 2x6 connection.
I will have three heights, short at around twelve inches, medium height around twenty four inches and the tall beds around thirty inches.
Recently I bought a UTV, it has proven to be very useful and we commonly tow a trailer around the property with it.
I use the trailer as a saw horse and cut the ten foot 2x6's to size.
Once all ready we load them up and take them into the enclosure.
The pieces are set out and I get to building with my screw driver. The hardest part is the first frame, you have to hold it all together while screwing it in. The next levels just kind of sit in place easily.
Having raised beds lets me build my own soil. We add logs and branches to the bottom of the boxes. And then add hay or mulch to each as the top dressing. We may follow up with regular dirt depending on how needy the plant is.
Some plants have no problem growing in wood chips or hay, while others need more refined soil to get going and stay happy. But since we have lots of hay and wood chips we plan on trying that first.
One of the great features of the UTV is its bed, we load it up with all kinds of things. Logs, branches, hay, mulch.
The hay are from left over bales, the previous owner had a local farmer collect the hay. But we plan on doing that ourselves soon.
We top off the beds as they will settle over time. All those logs and branches need time to settle to the bottom which will make space on top.
Hügelkulturs are a method of using decomposing wood as long term fertilizer. By burying the dead plant material like logs, branches and such they break down over time and feed the plants above. It may a year for them to start breaking down, but once it starts it should be good for decades we hope.
We have done a lot of tree clearing, so there is no shortage of tree material for bottom of the beds.
I spent all day building these beds, just a few of them can take most of the day. But the shorter ones will go up faster. So glad I am getting the big ones out of the way now.
But that third acre is quite big, and I have lots of building left to do.
Some days we just move more branches in the enclosure and get to cutting them up. I do the building of the beds while my farm foreman does the branch collecting and placement in the beds.
I have spent a few days building these now, its great to see them all coming along.
Using non pressure treated wood, they may not last decades but I hope to get a few years out of them. I may paint the outside of the boxes to help keep them lasting longer.
With another load of tree material it is time to unload it and cut it to size to fit in the seven foot by three foot boxes.
It may take another few full days to build the rest of these rectangular boxes, but soon enough I will build some new shapes such as horse shoe beds. I plan on constructing them along the walls of the enclosure. I have never built one before so it will be interesting to see how that all goes together.
