OT raised bed garden
In Alaska, by June we get 19 hours of sunlight/day, but the ground is often still too cold for good plant growth. We also live in an area that, not so long ago on a geologic scale, was at the bottom of a glacier that scraped everything down to bedrock and carried it out to sea. So, no topsoil. I fix this, and provide a nicer height to work at, with raised beds.
The beds are 3 feet across, and several hundred feet long, winding around our property in a maze-like pattern. The walls are 2 feet high, and can be built of any sturdy and nontoxic material (stone, landscape timbers, etc.). On top of the walls are 2X6 planks, for a nice seat. The 3-feet-wide by 2-feet-high space between the walls are filled with manure, trucked in from a local stable, and covered with a thin layer of topsoil. By next summer, we'll be growing lots of beans, potatoes, flowers.
Gotta get it done in the next few weeks, as I can already see snow on the Chugach Mountains, winter will rapidly move downhill. |
