For the past several weeks, I have been working soooo hard to get ready for gardening! In years past we have had a raised garden that had wood beams supporting it. This past year, they were almost disintigrated. The garden was falling apart!After researching square foot gardening, I decided that I wanted to do that method! So, for several weeks, we hauled off 3 trailers full of dirt (our existing garden). The main reason that I wanted to try the SFG method was to get rid of the weeds! It seems that I am always gung-ho about gardening until the weeds start taking over EVERYTHING in my garden. Seriously, they come up like carpet. Last year I spent at least an hour each day, and still couldn't keep up. So, after the dirt was hauled off, my husband and I got to work.
Our garden area after all the dirt has been hauled away.
Supplies for the garden boxes. We ordered the vinyl material from Best Vinyl, a vinyl fence company.
The first garden box put together.
All three boxes set, leveled and weed paper put down.
I was so looking forward to mixing up the "mix" today. Unfortunately, we woke up to 6" of snow! I guess it will wait until tomorrow....
Pile of compost ready to be mixed
9 bags of vermiculite for the mix
4 bags of peat moss to add in
Lessons I have learned thus far about square foot gardening:
1. It is a lot of work to get going.
2. It is very expensive to get going.
3. You don't need to have your corner posts more than about 6" into the soil. We ended up sawing off the posts because it was too hard to get the holes dug in our clay soil deeper than that.
Things I am hoping for with our new gardens:
1. Weeds will be kept to a minimum.
2. I will get as much or more harvest.
3. I will not have to spend as much time gardening.
Total costs:
3 4x8 foot vinyl gardens, each 10" high: Approximately $420
Compost (1.5 cubic yards): $38
Vermiculite (9 bags, each 3.8 cubic feet): $180 plus tax
Peat Moss (4 bags, each 3.8 cubic feet-they expand to 7+ cubic feet when opened): $60 plus tax
Weed Paper: $33
Total cost: $731
Cost per garden: $244
Great work on this post, Katie. That's really helpful info. As you know, we have 3-4 raised gardens with wood sides that also need to be replaced. I hadn't thought about vinyl, but that makes a lot of sense. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteRyan