After a sleep is optional night, I got up fairly early and decided to continue on the garden quest. As I lay in bed not sleeping last night, I decided to combine more of the boxes on the uphill end of the garden. They were rotting away, so this morning, I built a 4 x 4′ box in front of the asparagus but moved it downhill about a foot. I leveled the path below it and used that height as the grade for the box so lots of shoveling, but it did put some good composted soil in the 14′ bed I built yesterday, less will have to be purchased. The new box was set in place and filled with soil some from the paths beside it. The remaining 4 boxes up there are on either end of the asparagus bed and beside the one I built. They are going to become 4 x 8 foot boxes and will require a lot of digging in, but there is so much good soil there and where the compost pile was until the chickens spread it last fall, that there should be less needed for purchase. By the time I finished the box building and soil shoveling, it was time to fix lunch. Then I drove the tractor back up to the barn and hauled a 16′ double joist, two 8′ double joists, two 12′ 2 x 10s, and miscellaneous boards to use as ends for the boxes. The 16′ joist was cut in half, others trimmed to matching size or squaring off ends, and another long box was built, replacing a 4 x 8′ and a 4 x 4′ rotting cedar boxes.
I ran out of steam before I could build the next 4 x 8′ one on the upper end of the garden. It will require a lot of digging to level it and bring it down even with the smaller one I built this morning. The other 4 x 8′ one can’t be built until the garlic is harvested, but the wood is cut and will be stacked beside where it will be placed. Everything I did today is replacements. There is still a 4 x 4 that needs to be replaced, but I didn’t haul enough wood down to tackle it.
Several more bags of mulch were applied between the new boxes from yesterday and this morning. The garden is looking good.
Tomorrow will be 2 weeks since I got my second vaccine, so we are going to go dishwasher shopping. Maybe afterward, I will tackle the 4 x 8′ box that can be built now and Friday morning, before the rain showers begin, I will plant peas and onion in some of the newly finished beds.
I have lots of rotting cedar boards. The more sound ones will be used to build a compost bin in the corner of the garden near the hen coop. The rest will go in the burn barrel and burned when the spring burn ban is lifted.
For now, I’m going to just sit with me feet up for a while and redo my garden plan now it isn’t based on the old box sizes.