Wow! We worked HARD last weekend! We got the old gazebo down and took what was left to the dump. It will finish rusting and returning to the earth in no time! LOL We finished painting the new gazebo, patio furniture and bakers rack for the patio. WOW! I should have painted my old bakers rack a long time ago! It looks wonderful.
We bought all of the items for Mel’s Mix * 1/3 Peat Moss (easy to find) * 1/3 Vermiculite – Buy the coarse grade in large 4 cubic-foot bags at any garden center. (Not so easy to find, but here is a source! At U-Line Shipping * 1/3 Compost – Buy bags of it at the garden center to get started, but make your own as soon as possible.
Oh My! It took up the entire back of Jay’s truck. Eek, did we over buy? Nope! Then it was off to Lowes for the wood. I wanted cedar, but settled on Pine. I decided to paint it. Not a good idea, by the time I bought enough paint, I could have bought the Red Cedar. LOL live and learn!
We cut the wood, drilled the pilot holes and painted, and painted and painted. Finally we had them ready to be assembled! Whoop the 3 boxes are built, the grids are cut and painted too, and we moved the boxes to the back yard.
Up next… oops! LAYOUT issues oh my!
So we have 3 (4’ 1½” by 4’ 1½”) boxes. The SFG guy Mel Bartholomew suggests 3 feet between boxes. So we completely ignored his suggestion and placed the boxes where we thought we wanted them… It was not right. We moved them… and moved them… WHY did we not draw this part of the yard to scale on graph paper and work on the placement? I do not know! But in the end our boxes are 3 feet apart and it looks good!
Mixing Mel’s Mix
Well this was fun. Did you know hoeing works your quads? I did not until Sunday night! We got all the ingredients unloaded from Jay’s truck and in to the back yard. Talk about your upper body workout. We unfolded the tarp and went to mixing it up. Peat Moss when dry is light and flies all over the place, we had to keep misting it so as not not bother our neighbors family BBQ. Vermiculite same thing… so it is all mix and we drag the pile over to the furthest box. Jay, my sweet, loving, wonderful, husband, shovels it in while wait to wet it down. It took forever to get the peat to soak up water. But by 7:00 pm we had a box done, smooth and fully wet. We it was smooth until Rollie, 2 ½ yr old pup ran through it; guess we will need fencing.
Monday night to tired to mix, and I was doing an allergy RUSH therapy tomorrow so we held off mixing box 2. Tuesday however we did get box 2 done, even though Jay did not feel good. What a good guy!
So that is where we are… I hope tonight I can get either box 3 done or get the grids pit together. Also, we have to decide what to do in between the beds.
Well there will be no gardening today… I just heard thunder… I work in an office with no windows, so when I went to the fed ex box; I see that it is raining cats and dogs.
I am just sad I do not have seed and plants soaking up the rain.
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