Beds

60 cubic ft soil ($500) – enough to fill 3 beds

100 x 1.5 cu. ft. Organic All Natural Mulch ($397) – enough for entire area

232 x 6 in. x 16in. x 8 in. Gray Concrete Block ($584) – enough for 6 beds

Indoor Supplies

24 small pots
36 medium pots

Building the Community Garden

We certainly learned some lessons and made a few purchases, launched into some activities a little hastily; notable the rubber mulch.

Laying Weed Barrier

First, we covered the entire community garden space with two layers of weed barrier. Pins were troublesome to push down the fabric on the Eastern most side of the garden. Lots of tree roots maybe, or just very compact dirt on that side. We’ve previously gardened the Western area of the garden and that ground was more manageable.

Measuring and Constructing the Bedsd

Next, we measured out the areas for 5 beds, to be spaced evenly across the area. The beds ended up being 2 x 9 bricks (with the exception of Bed 6 which only had room for 2 x 6). That outer measurement comes to x 44″ x 144″. The cinderblock we used has holes so we plan to use those to plant some companion flowers to attract pollinators and deter pests.

Mulching Between Beds

We laid all of the bricks out for the beds and then applied the rubber mulch between and around all the beds:

Coming back in after the long day’s work, we did some additional reading and it turns out that rubber mulch is not a good choice for edible plants. Since the weed barrier in the beds is going to be removed so roots can go deeper into the native soil below, we definitely don’t want toxins from old tires or brown dye making their way into the soil upon contact with moisture (rain). So it made sense and so began the removal process (shoveling and yes, Shop Vac’ing) and just chalked up the 100 x .75 cubic feet of Rubber Mulch ($1,478) to a lesson and cancer prevention. We loaded it up and found a nice family on Craigs List willing to take it off our hands for their playground!

We decided on an organic, natural wood chip mulch (noted above) and re-mulched the space.

Filling the Beds

It’s now October and we have all these bags of soil ready that could either sit out in the elements all year, or just get nice and cozy in the beds. First we vacuumed out the leaves and debris that had accumulated over the barrier in the beds. Then we cut out the weed barrier from inside the beds and began filling the beds with the soil. We realized we only had enough for three of the beds (Beds 5, 4, 3). So we used about 20 bags per bed (20 cubic feet).

We also purchased barley straw bails from Zamzows. We read that it will naturally decompose so then we added that over the top of the soil and filled the two empty beds (not enough soil) with the mulch. We used 2 bails per bed over the ones with soil.

Lastly, we rolled burlap fabric over the beds and placed pavers over the top to secure over the winter. This will hopefully prevent too much debris from landing on the freshly soiled beds.