Our 8 x 8 raised garden bed, 12 inches high, holds about 64 cubic feet of soil, approximately 2,400 litres. We asked around about what kind of soil to use. One gardener told us to use nothing but “black earth” and peat. Another gardener told us topsoil and peat with lime. So we bought one 28-litre bag of peat (photo) and fifty 25-litre bags of topsoil (photo), some of it enriched with compost, at a cost of about $70. Hauling and emptying the bags was a drag, and it only filled about a third of the garden.
Then we spoke to a local organic farmer, Mike Rabinowitz, who told us all we need is composted soil and a 10-pound bag of lime. He gave us the lime for free and we bought 3 backhoe scoops of compost from a local contractor for $200, including delivery. We had to haul the rich, soft, dark compost from our driveway back to the garden with a wheelbarrow, which was a bit of work (mostly because the wheelbarrow had a hole in it and a flat tire), but the compost completely filled the garden bed and there was enough left over to fill in the first level of our potato tower (which we’ll get to later). The last step was to thoroughly mix 5 pounds of lime into the soil. Mike told us to add another 5 pounds next year, and that would be enough.
We won’t go into the planting process. It’s pretty basic. You draw a map (photo), put some seeds in the ground, cover them with soil and add water. We’ll post a more detailed but concise summary of the entire process, including dates for planting and harvesting some time in the fall. Until then, just check out our photo album once in a while.
UPDATE: Photos were added to the slideshow as the season progressed. There are now almost 200 photos in the our Garden (2009) photo album, most of them with descriptive captions, beginning on April 25th when we built the garden bed frame, ending 6 months later on October 24th when we sprinkled some lime over the soil and goodbye until next year.