Raised Beds - Fini

Post date: Jul 1, 2013 1:47:09 AM

Finnnnaaaaaalllllllyyyyy! We are on the last step, literally, of our raised beds. They are cinder block construction measuring 4'x11' each. The goal is to wrap them in cedar or stone veneer to match the greenhouse. Those, however, are plans for the future. In the short term, we will fill them with herbs and spices. Well, Mike has plans to fill them with dahlias and callas, but then again, this is Vermont.

Want to read the boring details on how these beds are built? Then the rest of this post is for you!

These raised beds measure 4'x11' on the exterior dimension. We designed the beds such that, when the ground between the greenhouse and beds is leveled (in the future) only two rows of cinder blocks will be exposed. This is 16" "above grade".

We used 8x8x16 cinder blocks. Mortar was type S mortar mix.

We started by digging down around 16" to bury two rows of cinder blocks. We then back filled with 4-6" of crushed gravel to make a firm level base for the blocks.

On the crushed gravel, we laid mortar then leveled out the first row of cinders. We let the first row of cinders dry and stacked the second row.

Now that the two rows were solid, we moved over to the second box. We repeated the digging and crushed stone. However, before we laid the first row of blocks we made sure our boxes would end up level. After careful measurements, adding stone, removing stone, adding stone back in we laid our the first row of the second raised bed.

One box is 4 layers and the second box is 5 layers of cinders. We filled the boxes with a soil and compost mix.

The box totals are:

190 cinders, 10 bags of mortar and 5cubic yards of soil mix (plus the soil we had on hand).