Garden Boxes
I’ve had a request or two for pictures of my garden boxes. I’m posting one of our boxes in KCMO, and the ones I have planned for this house. I got the idea from Country Home magazine and the need to find a place for two fruit trees. (The first picture.) 
My dear friend Mr. T. has personally grafted two apple trees and they are waiting at his orchard for the right transplanting time. One is a 3-in-one and the other is “the consummate pie apple” a Northern Spy. I built the boxes so that the trees could go in the middle and I can plant herbs and smaller veggies around the outside.
I cannot plant tomatoes in my yard as I have raspberries near the fence and tomatoes are related to nightshade, which is deadly to raspberries. I was a bit disappointed about that at first, but I’d rather have home-grown raspberries and buy my tomatoes from the farmer’s market anyway.
The boxes in KCMO were built from 2”x12”x10’ then we cut them at 3 feet and made the boxes 3’x7’ rectangles. This is a good size to be able to reach in and weed.
The new boxes are also 2x12’s, this time I bought 8-footers, but cut one foot off the end so the boxes wouldn’t run into my rock wall at the back of the yard, I wanted space to mow around the boxes instead of having gravel or mulch in between. The 7x7 size will give my trees plenty of room, as they are dwarf apple trees.
I purchased a “brick” of peat moss to mix into the topsoil, each “brick” is 3 cubic feet compressed.
I’m going to pound in some rebar to hold the boxes in place, and attach the rebar to the box with u-brackets.
I’ll be posting some pictures in the next couple days of the sod-laying. My fence guy was telling me about “floating” the sod and laying it on water covering the dirt, or laying it on really mushy ground. I guess it is quite sloppy, but you just smooth the topsoil out and “float” the piece of sod on the sloppy ground. I think that is what we will be doing, it has been raining here for days, and the backyard looks like a milk barn.
That’s it for now; Wanda and Drucilla are calling me, asking for more clothes to wash.
My dear friend Mr. T. has personally grafted two apple trees and they are waiting at his orchard for the right transplanting time. One is a 3-in-one and the other is “the consummate pie apple” a Northern Spy. I built the boxes so that the trees could go in the middle and I can plant herbs and smaller veggies around the outside.
I cannot plant tomatoes in my yard as I have raspberries near the fence and tomatoes are related to nightshade, which is deadly to raspberries. I was a bit disappointed about that at first, but I’d rather have home-grown raspberries and buy my tomatoes from the farmer’s market anyway.
The boxes in KCMO were built from 2”x12”x10’ then we cut them at 3 feet and made the boxes 3’x7’ rectangles. This is a good size to be able to reach in and weed.
The new boxes are also 2x12’s, this time I bought 8-footers, but cut one foot off the end so the boxes wouldn’t run into my rock wall at the back of the yard, I wanted space to mow around the boxes instead of having gravel or mulch in between. The 7x7 size will give my trees plenty of room, as they are dwarf apple trees.
I purchased a “brick” of peat moss to mix into the topsoil, each “brick” is 3 cubic feet compressed.
I’m going to pound in some rebar to hold the boxes in place, and attach the rebar to the box with u-brackets.
I’ll be posting some pictures in the next couple days of the sod-laying. My fence guy was telling me about “floating” the sod and laying it on water covering the dirt, or laying it on really mushy ground. I guess it is quite sloppy, but you just smooth the topsoil out and “float” the piece of sod on the sloppy ground. I think that is what we will be doing, it has been raining here for days, and the backyard looks like a milk barn.
That’s it for now; Wanda and Drucilla are calling me, asking for more clothes to wash.
Comments
Well, hope all is well. How's next week look to get together?
love
jess