It’s show time and go time baby. The clock is ticking down quickly for the 2024 planting season and I’m so far from ready that I could load and aim a cannon at ready, blast that cannon at ready, and still not be close to ready. Now that Seedling Mode has been activated, they’re my daily reminders that, well, they have to be planted somewhere eventually. Plot 63P needs a lot of labor and love if 2024 aims to be a somewhat productive growing season.
When I stand around aimlessly in the plot and look around, there’s a lot in my mind that needs to be done. The ground is entirely devoid of mulch and the weeds are sitting below the surface just itching for spring to activate. There’s tons of extra decaying stored lumber in the plot that needs to be removed. Most importantly however, is the beds themselves and the soil they contain. If the beds are on the verge of collapse, they won’t really hold up structurally with my plans to dig and amend the soil. So, if I want to do soil prep I need to fix the beds. If the beds need fixing then we’ll have to start one at a time. As a result, I’ve set my sights on the Suburbs of 63P, particularly with a bed I’m calling Groucho.
Groucho is currently the saddest of the 4 nearly identical beds in the Suburbs. Let’s look at the damage.
If a raised bed is going to do it’s job, it has to be intact. That’s why Groucho is first on my list of repairs. Since these beds already contain soil, the strategy is to replace it in pieces; razing one half and replacing, then razing the other half and replacing, keeping the soil more or less intact during the process.
I started by removing the boards on two of the sides that were the worst (or missing entirely), then dug out a slot of the soil to give ample space for screwing in the replacement boards. All beds in the suburbs are 2″x8″ boards and I intend to keep those dimensions intact.
After removing the boards, this was a great opportunity to get a glimpse of the soil health from the side, almost like taking off the sides of a cake to see what the layers look like inside.
If you look at the above pictures at a distance, the bed looks like a light brown brownie topped with chocolate fudge. The reality is not as appealing. Better days have been seen by this soil. In fact, the bottom half looks rich in clay and devoid of any organic material much at all. It’s going to take a couple seasons of care, compost, root growth and some manual help to resuscitate this soil. Unfortunately that means I won’t be participating in the Oregon Country Fair’s largest zucchini competition this year. Gadzooks. If Groucho’s soil looks this way, I can pretty much expect the other beds in the ‘burbs will look similar. In any case, I’m still full of optimism in hopes of growing stuff in here to help kick off the long process of enriching these beds again.
The support posts were completely rotted out, so I put in new posts because it’s hard to screw boards into what previously looked like a post, but was basically sawdust in the shape of a post.
Voilà! Plot 63P is finished! The era of edible abundance is here! Also I’m dreaming! Well at least we’ve finished one half of Groucho’s facelift. The rest will be for another day. He’s gone from saddest to gladdest in the Suburbs. The other beds look different too although I can’t put my finger on it. I think they all look slightly jealous. Once I get the other side of Groucho fixed up, then I can start caring for and prepping the soil which is my next move. I’ve read that if you’re going to prep/amend soil, it’s best to give it a few weeks/months at a minimum to breath and percolate before the growing season. We’re heavily approaching that minimum. So, I’ll be itching to get back out here to finish the job. I’d love to have at least one plantable bed ready to go come spring. I can feel the eyes of all my seedlings growing in the garage glaring at me. I can feel the weight of their expectations. Groucho must be ready to house them.
One step at a time 🥸
AA
Leave a Reply