Wether you’re new to gardening or a long-time homesteader, raised beds are a great way to grow your own grocery store right at home! Keep reading to find out the #1 hack to make your garden cost effective!
You've searched the internet, you scavenged for some pallets; you have a gorgeous raised garden bed just waiting to bring you produce all summer long! Just one problem- its empty.
Our empty garden bed
Now if your first thought is, "Well duh, fill it with dirt, right?" you've come to the right place. While its true that dirt will eventually occupy space, good quality dirt (the kind that has enough nutrients to keep your plants healthy) is pretty expensive. And unless you're really into composting, you won't have nearly enough to fill the bed.
Lori with a van full of logs
Enter the free stuff:
So as you can see, my garden bed is pretty big. In order to take up as much space as possible, we employed the hugelkultur [Hoo-gle-culture] method. The idea is you fill the bottom of the garden bed with logs, sticks, and leaves to fill as much space as possible. This in effect raises the garden up.
Filling bottom of the garden bed with logs
Over time, the logs break down. This adds further nutrients to the soil. As an added bonus, the logs store extra moisture for those hot summer days when you can’t get out of bed fast enough to water your garden. Need one more reason to be sold on hugelkultur? They're free! We got these logs from a friend of ours who chopped down a tree in their yard. Just the other day I saw some on someone's tree lawn a couple streets down. They're everywhere and they're free and they're great for your garden. What more could you ask for?
Our local chip drop in the Metroparks
Filling the gaps:
Okay, I'll admit there was still a ton of extra space in the garden once we added the logs. For anyone in the Cleveland, OH area, there's a free chip drop in the Metroparks below the Lorain rd. bridge by the hospital. This place has been a lifesaver for our mostly free projects. We used it for our Hammock Corner and now for the garden beds!
Loading the garden with free wood chips
Look how nice that fills the space! We loaded up about 8 plastic totes full of mulch and sticks which pretty much did the trick! Lori thought my garden bed was smaller and taller so the logs really were a little too big and stuck up more than she liked. Honestly, by the time we get to the dirt, there will still be plenty of soil for my plants to root into before they ever get to the logs. To quote my mother in law, "We gonna make it work."
Transplanting soil from the pond project to use in the garden.
While I was filling the garden with some yard waste compost we left marinating all winter, Lori got started digging The Pond! We used the soil from the pond to add on top of the garden for even more free filling! Always coordinate your projects!
Filled garden bed
Final result:
At the very end we topped with some compost soil and I finally got to plant my garden! With the extra money we saved in dirt, I went to our local plant shop, Buyers Outlet and got some herbs and veggies that I wasn't able to start from seed.
What do you think? Will you be trying hugelkultur this summer?
Stay tuned for a step by step tutorial on how to build a FREE pallet garden bed!
Check out our Youtube channel for videos of our projects! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClQbAZzObnB-kLJh5PRSKMg
Your friendly neighborhood DIYer,
Bailey
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