Building the Basics

By February I had a pretty good plan, or at least I thought so and had my wish list at Burpee all set up. But I needed the raised beds and that was a bit intimidating.

I really struggled with getting started building the beds. Because I really have no experience with, well, anything related to gardening, I second guessed myself right into inactivity for quite some time.

First off, this isn't my last home and because I could get transferred as early as next year, though hopefully not for 2 years after that, I didn't want to do something I couldn't undo when the house goes to market. I also got terrified of all the warnings from every source about contaminants in building materials that get into food crops grown in it. I also didn't like the look of so many that have pictures posted, with their sagging unkempt boards or tacky plastic decorative borders.
I wanted something that looked clean, neat and was not going to be impossible to either afford, source or build with. Sure...right...

After about a month of trying to get actual eco-lumber, which is made from recycled plastics but is not the stuff used on decks, I had to chuck that idea. Using the deck stuff is easier to source locally, but it does bend quite a bit and for many of them there are some issues with the edges in our blistering heat. Getting the actual lumber required special orders, vague delivery promises and considerable price differences from standard lumber.

Ditto with the the fancy natural lumber that is fairly resistent to any termite activity.

So, I went with untreated 2 x 6's and felt happy to finally make the decision. Building them was actually really easy in terms of engineering it and my niece and I had a good afternoon getting them built. We got a system down and it went like an assembly line after a while.

And here is Vanna working on putting in screws on the first layer.

I let them sit outside near the house to swell and shrink as they liked for a couple of weeks while I waited for my dirt delivery. I calculated that I had approximately 41 cubic feet, or 1 yd 14 ft, of space within the boxes to fill, but I would need considerably more to level them out and then have a bit left over to put a fresh inch on my front shrub beds. I got the minimum order of 3 cubic yards set for delivery in March.

Meanwhile, like most people who are planning their garden, whether novice like me or vastly experienced, I simply couldn't wait to start things off. Some of my seed orders had come in and I had done some early purchases of the more common varieties here locally. I also had bought 3 different kinds of seed starting systems so I could compare them. Hmm....sounds like I was ready, doesn't it?

I filled up those seed starting trays with so much stuff it was ridiculous. The Burpee Ultimate Seed Starter is pretty cool because it has a mat that wicks the water up from the resevior into the plants, encouraging root growth. It is lower maintenance for sure. I also got the cheap stand by, Jiffy and a good standard Morse that uses expanding peat pellets.

While this drama of seedlings is playing out right to this day, I do have some feedback after 2 months for all of these.

Bottom line, I like using the empty Beneful Prepared Meals containers better than all of them.

Why? It seemed to me that unless I was planting all the cells with the same kind of plant, there was no way to ensure success. Putting the tray into the light as soon as you get sprouts can kill some of the more tender ones and still not be enough for some of the light hungry ones.

For the peat pellet brand, I found the density of the swollen out peat to be simply too hard for some rootlets to get through and they didn't do nearly as well as the Beneful container ones. With this one, it also holds water exceptionally well and too well for some types of plants. The first ones I did were onion seeds because I wanted to see if I could grow some from seed as well as sets purchased later. They did well at first but the peat was simply too wet for them and very few survivied long enough to be bedded down.

The cheap Jiffy one did okay simply because I controlled the mix that went into it. It has the same problem of needing to have the same or very similar plants seeded into it so sunlight consistency wouldn't be an issue, but by creating my own mix of loose peat, vermiculite and a bit of miracle grow potting mix I did get a soil that was loose enough for delicate roots and held moisture at just the right level for the right amount of time.

For other novices out there though, just use old butter tubs and the like and save yourself $100.

Yes, I did spend that much on that stuff. I did read another exceptionally brilliant idea on the Homesteadingtoday.com forum. (I apologize to whoever had this idea that I'm not using your name but I can't find it again now.) He gets those smaller clear salad containers from his local grocery salad bar, stacks them up and, since it is charged by weight, simply has those weighed under that code and gets the perfect starters for a few cents. Brilliant! I will definitely be using that one next year.