Gardening for me is more than a hobby. It’s almost a compulsion. I love growing food, my vegetables. However, I can live without the fancy flowers and shrubs. There’s just something in me that makes me happy when I have a vegetable garden. Moving forward with this garden space, I had the challenge of building a raised bed garden, and when gardeners have a compulsion to grow their own food, this was just another step towards a successful community garden.
Approved: Building a Raised Bed Garden
The strata council approved my garden plan. Now what? Reality reared its head when I found out the actual price of the necessary materials. Landscaping ties are not cheap.
My wife suggested we check for used lumber at Surrey New & Used, a great place to pick up all sorts of used and second hand things.
Score! They had a pile of used garden ties, including varying lengths of 4x4s and 4x6s. Just $1/ft—what a bargain! Back home, I parked close to the pit. Pulling them out of the van, one by one, I balanced them on top of the fence and let them fall into the pit, letting gravity do most of the work. Then I went down and arranged them into a single layer. As they were, I knew that the beds would be too shallow to do anything worthwhile.
We headed out again, and this time, we bought every tie that wasn’t rotted through to build a second layer, and have a few left over. Back home, I shaved stakes from old cedar lumber and pounded them into the ground to hold the ties in place against the weight of the coming dirt.
It’s a Guy Thing
It was the start of lockdown, and everything, except me, was quiet. Every morning’s traffic was like Christmas morning. While the rumble of city noise has ceased, neighbors took notice of the racket I was making. As people came to collect their mail at the clubhouse, they stopped and talked, asking me what I was doing. During that first hour, I met so many neighbors in the complex I’d never seen before. Particularly, guys drawn to the noise of construction. saying, “Hey. What’s happening?” I’d give the quick explanation. “I’m installing a vegetable garden.”
Responses were positive. “Garden huh? It’s about time somebody put this area to use,” or “I always said we should grow a garden down here.” And we all agreed that a garden would be timely, that food prices were going to skyrocket during the pandemic. They were floored when I said, “This isn’t going to be my personal garden. The veggies I grow will be for everybody.”
It’s Not Dirt – It’s Soil
But first, dirt. Or rather, SOIL, as I was told by the landscaping company. I was quoted $50/yard, delivered. I did some calculating. I needed three cubic yards to do what I wanted—12” high x 18” wide x 55’ long. I got the best quality soil the following weekend.
Saturday morning, the delivery driver phoned to ask where to dump the soil. I trotted out to meet him at the visitors parking spots positioned above the pit. Only two spots were free, furthest from the stairs. Rats! Well, that’s where the soil would have to go.
A dump truck came around the corner. I had expected a trailer hauled behind an SUV. I didn’t appreciate the true size of my order. Dumped, the steaming pile occupied the two parking spaces, plus some. “This is going to take longer than I thought.”
Three Shovels make Light Work
I intended to do the work myself. Didn’t have anything else on my plate. But just moving the soil via wheelbarrow down the narrow steps would take more than a day. Two neighbors came to the rescue: Rick and Peter, shovels in hand. We stood there, contemplating the steaming pile. “How are you gonna get this stuff down there?” Peter asked. I looked at the wheelbarrow, then the pile, and thought of the narrow stairway. Peter, a retired engineer, is a smart person.
With three of us shoving more than shovelling, the big pile up top became a big pile on the bottom. Didn’t take as long as I had anticipated. And not long to spread the soil into the waiting bed. But we had soil left over. I looked at the leftover ties and envisioned another bed (or two). I’d have enough space to grow tomatoes, potatoes and even some squash. I have to apologize for not having the foresight to take photos at the time. Photos of the tomatoes, squash and potatoes will appear in later posts.
I laid out two more beds, each only a single garden tie high. There was enough soil to fill them about four inches deep. I mixed the soil with the underlying sand. Not the best growing medium, but I decided it would be an experiment. Those beds weren’t in the “garden plan,” but I figured it was easier to ask forgiveness than to ask permission. I couldn’t imagine there’d be complaints when people picked their first fresh goodness.