Our school LOVES to garden! The children get so excited to plant seeds, weed the garden and especially love to harvest the crop. This year we chose to expand the garden to double what we did last year. We use metal raised garden beds from amazon. They are 4ft x 8ft. SUPER easy to put together and light enough to move around if needed by one person.
We laid down landscaping fabric at the bottom to cut down on the weeds in the bed. We then put the garden beds over top so it would create a weed barrier. Last year we did not do this step and regretted it by the time harvest came and we were fighting weeds intertwined with the vegetables.
Next we started to layer the garden bed. We added a layer of natural wood mulch. A local tree company dumps their mulch at my family's barn at their disposal, which we LOVE because we can use it as cow bedding in the barn. Here is another way we used the mulch. It will help with the cost of potting soil and making the beds super thick with dirt. It also will allow for great drainage for the plants and wont leave them flooded.
Finally, we get to add dirt. Now here we scrapped the top layer off our field, where it is routinely fertilized and groomed so the soil is excellent, but you can also buy soil to top with. We are blessed with an abundance of natural resources, so we went this route. (Yes, I know the top is not level, but the children helped and was so proud, I used their picture of their work.)
This next part is completely optional, but we decided to make an arch for the garden walkway. we recycled an old cattle fence panel then staked it into the ground. We have high hopes to grow a vine plant to make it have greenery all the way around.
To finally finish the new garden area, we will be delivering stone to add around the area to help with weed control and to tidy the space up.
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