Built some garden beds over the weekend at 0 cost by reusing old wood I had laying around using nothing but an electric chainsaw and an impact driver.
2 beds are something like 6’ x 2’ and the third is something like 10’ long. I have no clue what the exact dimensions are since I just eyeballed everything.
Kinda debating whether to cut up some old cat litter bags we have to make a liner just to keep dirt from slipping out through gaps.
Also managed to go on the first good bike ride of the season over the weekend. Just under 30 miles.
We’d love to see your project over in Nature & Gardening! I don’t know what your litter bags are like but your local library is likely to have old issues of newspaper that would also do the trick with a few layers put down. Some of those bags can have plastics which will break down and get into the soil organisms that do all that nutrient cycling for your plants, and your food.
If you mean agricultural felt, carry on. Other than that, most woven landscape fabrics are plastics and will not only break down and get into the soil but also make removing plants which grow through it harder to manage or remove
It’s not so much the crop you’re growing, but the weedy species around the growing space which will try to get to that space and will entangle themselves in the plastic interweave. Trying to remove them by pulling will just rip some of the material apart, which means bits of plastic left behind and greater opportunities for even more weeds to make it through.
Landscape fabric would probably work, although I have the litter bags on hand already. The soil under the beds is pretty decent (used to be farm land) so letting stuff shoot roots down should be fine. I’m just trying to do just enough to keep soil from spilling out between boards when it rains.
Also, turns out my city has a partnership with a place that sells compost from the yard waste the city collects so it isn’t completely insane to fill the beds with compost. I’ll probably do some more poking around to see if I can find anything else though.
Built some garden beds over the weekend at 0 cost by reusing old wood I had laying around using nothing but an electric chainsaw and an impact driver.
2 beds are something like 6’ x 2’ and the third is something like 10’ long. I have no clue what the exact dimensions are since I just eyeballed everything.
Kinda debating whether to cut up some old cat litter bags we have to make a liner just to keep dirt from slipping out through gaps.
Also managed to go on the first good bike ride of the season over the weekend. Just under 30 miles.
We’d love to see your project over in Nature & Gardening! I don’t know what your litter bags are like but your local library is likely to have old issues of newspaper that would also do the trick with a few layers put down. Some of those bags can have plastics which will break down and get into the soil organisms that do all that nutrient cycling for your plants, and your food.
Not sure if you have the budget, but landscape fabric is wonderful for separating raised beds from the surrounding environment.
If you mean agricultural felt, carry on. Other than that, most woven landscape fabrics are plastics and will not only break down and get into the soil but also make removing plants which grow through it harder to manage or remove
I was just trying to grow chile.
It’s not so much the crop you’re growing, but the weedy species around the growing space which will try to get to that space and will entangle themselves in the plastic interweave. Trying to remove them by pulling will just rip some of the material apart, which means bits of plastic left behind and greater opportunities for even more weeds to make it through.
Every fucking time I tried to start a garden, I got divorced. Not causation.
Landscape fabric would probably work, although I have the litter bags on hand already. The soil under the beds is pretty decent (used to be farm land) so letting stuff shoot roots down should be fine. I’m just trying to do just enough to keep soil from spilling out between boards when it rains.
Also, turns out my city has a partnership with a place that sells compost from the yard waste the city collects so it isn’t completely insane to fill the beds with compost. I’ll probably do some more poking around to see if I can find anything else though.