Building another garden bed!
The first garden bed ended up being nowhere as big as I thought once I actually planted things, so I built another one up the hill from the first. This time I bought new lumber from Home Depot, which was out of stock of everything I hoped for. I had to go with much larger 2 in. x 12 in. x 12 ft. boards, which were naturally much more expensive as well! But it turned out all right.
Garden status 2025-05-17: Decided to build potentially two more garden beds.
Ruffie resting next to Remi's grave while I collect mixed compost off the top of the garden bed I'm digging.
Second raised garden bed in progress.
Second raised garden bed in progress.
I'm using geotextile out of an abundance of caution so the 12 x 6 x 2 feet of soil doesn't push forward down the hill too much and tip the whole thing over.
Took the opportunity to trim as much of the dead wood as I could reach with Yizhen's battery powered extensible chain saw on a pole.
Crazy Zuko monitoring my progress.
As a base layer, I filled the new bed with a bunch of dead wood I cut down from the invasive “blackwood” Acacia melanoxylon growing in my yard. It grows super fast but also ends up with large dead branches frequently. There are a few of these trees across this hillside I am on, and almost half of the branches are dead. But they are high up and long, so no one cuts them down apparently. I cut as much as I could reach, which was a bit of an adventure in itself. I used a ladder combined with a small chain saw on a pole.
I trimmed a bunch more dead branches from the weedy Acacia melanoxylon trees I've got in my yard, and then used them to fill the base of the raised bed.
After cutting all the branches in smaller pieces, they compacted down pretty well. I'm sure there are tons of air gaps though I won't be able to fill well.
Home Depot soil delivery. At least these weren’t fragile, because the person just tossed them off the truck apparently.
I ordered more crappy garden soil from Home Depot, as it would save me two trips and a bunch of time. 20 3.3 cubic foot Kellogg garden soil bags at $10.47, 7 1 cubic foot steer manure bags at $2.47, $35 delivery, total $288.51 with $26.82 tax.
