Building the Long Beds, Day 1

Despite soggy ground, overcast skies and temps in the mid to high thirties, Leah and I bundled up in layers of work clothes and headed outside  Sunday to lay the groundwork for what will become a series of long concrete raised beds that will run parallel to the greenhouse on it's North side.

Situated as such, anything planted there should have some decent protection from the wind (even moreso with the potential addition of a hedge running perpendicular to the beds and greenhouse on their East side... still considering that one).

The first step was a barest-bones attempt at leveling the area by filling in the most obvious holes, year-old tire ruts and low spots with topsoil.  The area as a whole still slants noticably, but at least we wouldn't be turning an ankle stepping in any holes.

Better planning would have seen us waiting to install the landscaping-block wall around the north side of the greenhouse (visible above) until after we laid the landscaping fabric, so the edge of the fabric could tuck under the wall and provide a most effective barrier against weed growth.  Suffice to say, this did not happen, and we were left with the somewhat less desirable (but waaaay more fun) option of blasting all the weeds along the north concrete wall with my big propane torch.

The weather was perfect for this part, at least (cold and wet) and I managed to accomplish it without setting fire to anything important... I think.

Next we laid and weighted down the landscaping fabric, heavy-duty 5-mil stuff from DeWitt.  We've used this before, under the gravel around our other raised beds and in the greenhouse.  It's good strong stuff.

I miscalculated how much we'd need, and we ran out before covering the desired area-to-convert in full.  We weighed the rest of it down with some rocks, scrap lumber and cinder blocks (it gets pretty windy in our neck of the woods, and I didn't want to end up chasing this stuff across a muddy field).

We took some measurements, pulled a taut mason line across the expanse of black fabric, and began laying the first bed.  I hauled blocks and caulked the edges while Leah placed and leveled the blocks.

We managed to get one entire bed done... well more than I thought we'd be likely to accomplish in one day.  We ended the day tired, somewhat cold and wet, and pretty darn sore (though that was mostly me... Leah is apparently tougher than I am when it comes to a day of working with cinder blocks...)

Once we get them built, our goal is to use these beds to efficiently grow row-type crops (peas, beans, etc.) in a way that allows us a decent amount come harvest-time (one eight foot row of pea or bean plants doesn't yield much), while simultaneously giving us some more raised bed space that we can use to interplant other annuals or herbs alongside the main row crop.