I had forgotten that at the far end of the left-er bed is a large underground rock about 2 inches down. So the left one needs to be two courses deep and I pushed and hauled and grunted the thing together yesterday. I'll need to check the ground in the right one, I may leave it at one deep - or may make it two deep if I find another huge rock in there. They are level to about 4 inches over 12 feet, which I hear is good enough.
Next question: I've read that I should be using hardware cloth at the bottom of these to prevent burrowing animals from getting in. Opinions anyone?
See how nice and smoothly graded the orchard area is on this frosty morning? I spread grass seed yesterday, so it's possible that I just doubled the area of grass I have to cut (oof!).
I wouldn't go with the hardware cloth on the bottom . . . but then we've never had trouble with burrowing animals.
ReplyDeleteWe've found that over the years as we add more organic matter and good stuff to the soil in the beds, it just kinda magically works it's way down into the soil that the beds were originally built on and makes that previously "un-worked-up" soil nice and friable, too!
So eventually you end up with more "good" soil for things to grow in (like deep rooted crops) than you put into the frames.
I suppose they could climb up and under, but they could go over and down, too! Right? I had something digging around in one of mine this summer, but it wasn't a problem. I put a lot of shredded paper in the bottom of mine to kill the grass, as I didn't dig any of it out. So far, so good...just gotta get the composted manure in there. I'm on to Plan B ..or is it C?
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