At last, the polyurethane dried, the holes were drilled and help showed up to move our glue lams to the backyard. Luckily, I was working at the Tacoma Kids Marathon so I got out of heavy labor…or so I thought. The pictures shown here are of the garden bed in our backyard, all attached and waiting for dirt. The black lining on the inside is a “self adhering window flashing” and on the bottom is a layer of ground cloth.
The hard work for me came the next day…mixing and shoveling the compost / dirt mix. As recommended by Mel Bartholomew in his Square Foot Gardening book, we had several ingredients for our compost mix; vermiculite, peat moss, and a few different types of compost. For compost, we chose a five blend, mushroom, steer manure, and another blended compost from Garden Sphere in Proctor. According to the Square Foot gardening book, the formula for a good garden mix is 1/3 blended compost, 1/3 peat moss, and 1/3 coarse vermiculite (measured by volume, not by weight).
To mix the compost we dumped all the different bags out onto a huge tarp (see picture). My husband and I grabbed the corners of one end and pulled the tarp across to the other end. We then switched ends and pulled the tarp across the opposite direction. After several pulls of this heavy mix, we were able to add it to the garden bed. More pictures next week…
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