Leaf it to me.

Cloudy, waiting on rain and wind today. Mild temps in the 50’s.

What do you do when you are a very tight budget and need to fill some garden beds?

You use what is available naturally as much as possible that you can get for free. That may look different wherever you are. For instance, in the desert I have no idea what I would do. Likely I would not do raised beds but sunken ones because of water issues. I planted in ground when I lived in CA, building up wells around the plants instead with the native soil. Those wells would then be flooded with water once a week and left to seep into the ground around the roots for a deep watering otherwise you were watering two times a day to keep things surviving through the heat of 100 degree dry summers.

But here, where things are a lot more wet and cooler (generally) for the majority of the year, and bio “waste” is plentiful, gathering free materials are a lot easier when you need a whole lot of it as filler. I waited until now to really get started on this project for a few reasons. 1) I lacked motivation. I was healing, grieving, resting and regrouping, getting used to the new jobs and the new homesite. 2) Autumn brings with it so many leaves and other easily gathered plant based useful items. Why make work harder than it has to be? I’ve always been a proponent of work smarter, not harder. I had other areas of the property for a few fall crops that I didn’t have to rush this. I could wait until things were easier to gather.

So what am I putting in my raised beds? These metal ones, though pricy (I had bought them before the move, and brought them with me) have been sitting here all summer. Once in a while, as I thought about it, I would toss some weeds (not the roots or seeds) in or rotten bits of wood and logs. Small boxes I’d rescue from my neighbor’s burn pile went in too. Larger boxes went to covering areas of grass and weeds. Now that it’s time to put the rest of the garden to bed, I piled in tomato and squash vines. And I raked leaves from the paths in the forest and brought them back in buckets. Urban folks can gather bagged leaves up pretty easily from neighbors…On the farm I had a lot of goat bedding and poop that helped fill the beds. I will bury compostable kitchen scraps that the chickens won’t eat in as well to compost in place through the winter. Closer to spring, I will top it all off with my favorite compost from the store, since I do not have a free source of that yet but it will be a lot less then had I just done that strait. Instead of 60 cubic feet of soil to buy for each bed, it will be more like 8-12 per bed. That favorite compost is a local company that uses waste organic foods to make their compost and the price isn’t bad. I find my plants absolutely love it. You can do your research on local sources that you feel you can jive with. If you are a “miracle grow” fan, well, you do you I suppose but I’ve never had plants actually thrive in their products and knowing what that company has done over the years it’s one I don’t chose to give money to.

Every year, as the bottom stuff rots, more stuff will need to be added. Be that compost, leaves, (green and brown), manure and mulches, it won’t be difficult to keep them topped off and productive.

And having the wood in the bottom? That serves more as a water basin. Wood will hold onto the moisture and release it slowly to the soil and the roots of plants. A lot less watering will be needed. At least for several years.

Why metal beds over wood ones? Nothing wrong with wood beds, especially if you can get the wood cheep. However, they don’t last very long at all in this climate. These metal ones are rated to last longer than I should, saving time and effort. I had mostly gotten them because they didn’t float away like wooden beds did during the yearly flooding at the farm and are easier to put together and move then ones made out of cement blocks. I don’t have to worry about that here, but the other points are still good. Taller beds though not overly tall, make it easier to tend as I get older or are hurt due to my physical disability. Should I get injured, it would be easier for my homestead mates to tend to it. They are not really garden people, which is why I think they keep me around. (Have a useful skill, folks, if you are thinking to be part of a community in a possible survival situation.) Have to think of the long term sometimes and the higher cost now will equal less cost later in time and money.