Saturday 2 May 2009

Building a raised bed from logs

Last year we built a low raised bed for a customer, according to the way she wanted it. Since moving to our new place in Camber, we've got together with some of the other residents and decided to build a taller raised bed in the communal garden area for people to use. I'd cut some of the logs up a while ago, with help from my friend Jon, and we got some more on Thursday evening. So, last night, with the help of our neighbours John and Helen (here's Helen's website), we set about building the raised bed.

Here's the raw materials, some bags of topsoil I collected free in Rye via Freecycle:
stakes, some that we made and some left over from trees that had been planted nearby:
John and Helen got their hands dirty helping, Tracy was helping too, but she was doing the pictures so you won't see any of her.
We started by laying out four logs where we wanted the bed to go:
and then John and I got to work with the post driver:
Once the stakes were all in place we simply dropped logs in to build up the walls:
Then put cardboard in the bottom to reduce the chance of weeds coming up from underneath, and some porous membrane on the sides to stop soil coming through the gaps:
To finish we used rope to pull the tops of the stakes together and firm up the walls, then put in the soil. We still need to get some more soil, but it's looking good so far:
I'm pleased enough with this that I think we might try doing another somewhere, and try to get the logs a more even size so it looks neater. Not that appearance matters too much as long as it does its job!

Mike

No comments: