Today, Ryan and I tilled up the ground where we plan to plant. We had to borrow a small, motorized tiller from some friends, which was great because we didn't really want to buy one or rent one, which you may have to do if you don't have generous friends or family who already own one.
The tilling took about an hour, as we have very clay-like dirt in the area where our permanent beds are going. Ryan did most of the tilling (as in ALL of it) so I cleaned up the rest of the yard while he tilled. I'd say he went about 6-8 inches down.
We aren't planning to mix this soil with the topsoil and potting soil we plan to put on top. The plan is to till this dirt up, top it with old leaves and grass clippings from last fall, then top that with the topsoil and finally with potting or gardening soil concentrated in the spots where we plant. We're going to leave the garden beds for a couple weeks and water it to make sure any weeds or grass that grows can be easily removed. I used this article, from Mother Earth News for reference: http://ow.ly/Kmxki.
Why till? Why not just throw some dirt on top of the grass? I read in that article and a few others that the more room the veggies have to grow their roots, the healthier and they will be and more will grow. This way also, you won't have as many weeds and possible grass growing though into your garden. There are ways to do this without tilling, and that same article posted above addresses how to do that if you're interested. Another article that came in handy was this one: http://ow.ly/KmGUk.
I found another article, only this one to help me build my permanent beds, in the Spring 2015 Capper's Farmer. It's called Easy-to-Build Raised Gardening Plans Using Reclaimed Lumber and used the basic guidelines from there. Unfortunately, the article isn't posted online, yet.
Our beds are 4'x8', so we used 8 foot 1x6 boards and 4 foot 1x6 boards and fastened them to 4x4s. They aren't perfectly even, but we don't care. We just wanted something to help keep our animals out, and our neighborhood has a ton of rabbits and squirrels. Plus, the boards will settle and be uneven, anyway. We weren't worried about them being perfect. For more information about how we built these beds, read the captions on the photo slideshow below.
After setting up the beds, we wrapped them in gardening wire to keep rabbits and our very own dog, Zoey, out of the beds. I'm hoping our cat and the neighborhood cats will stay away.
Now we just have to get a truck and buy a load of dirt to fill the beds. That will be another post. Stay tuned.
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