Since March, I've been working on a tiered garden in my landlord's front lawn. It's a big project, and it's been taking up a lot of my free time. I decided to do everything myself, rather than hiring a professional landscaper. That seems counter-intuitive to the hacker spirit, but I wanted to do it myself so that I could learn how much time and money it would actually take.

I also wanted to do this project because, at heart, I am a hick, a crafter, and an engineer. I've watched my dad build fences, restore a wooden boat, and work on cars. I wanted to test myself and see if I had enough planning skills and drive to actually do a big project like build a garden.

Caveat, caveat, etc. Without further ado, I present pictures:

If you're interested in more pictures and the technical details of my garden construction, read on.

Preparation

I was talking to my friend Inaky about my project, and he suggested I get the "Call Before You Dig" people to mark my underground utilities. I found that the gas line (marked in yellow in the next picture) ran through part of my garden space. Because of that, I decided to shrink my garden a little.

I had to supply a description of where I was planning to dig, and I described the front yard by the mailbox. For some reason, the utilities people decided to mark the corner of the house too. It's not coming off the concrete anytime soon.

Digging

Dirt is heavy. I did most of the digging myself, and it took four weekends and a couple evenings. I moved about 3 cubic yards of soil in that time. I convinced Jamey to help me dig some of the time, and he discovered that loosing the soil with a pitch fork made the job go much faster. We could move big clumps with the fork and then clean up the little clods with the shovel. Still, it was a long process, and I ached afterwards.

As a result of exhausting digging, I didn't get any pictures before I put the boards on the posts.

The above picture shows how much dirt clay I had to move. The patch of earth was full of sticks, stones, willow tree roots, plastic grocery bags, and other random rubble. Halfway through the project, I discovered a metal plate in the middle of the garden that was securely attached to something. I also uncovered a rusty metal knob. Googling for the text on the knob lead me to a post about an oil tank in the middle of someone's lawn. I asked Mike, and he said there was a decommissioned tank on the property that had been filled with concrete. It's possible that trees were cut down to get to the tank, and then they backfilled with cheap fill dirt.

Posts and concrete

I was finally done digging sometime in early April. By that time, the neighbors were saying things like, "Isn't it time for the dirt to go in?", or, "What ya going to put in that grave?" It was time to dig post holes and mix concrete.

It turns out that concrete is really cheap. It's like $2 for a 60 pound bag at Home Depot. We rented a concrete mixer for putting in six of the posts, but we ended up mixing the concrete for the other 3 posts in a wheelbarrow. The wheelbarrow was easily washed out, and I would use that instead of the concrete mixer next time.

Jamey and I ended up staying up until 2:00am so we could finish the project before we had to return the concrete mixer. We couldn't wait to lay the concrete until morning because we knew it was going to start raining the next day. Mike (our landlord) loaned us his flood lights. It was kind of creepy to be working that late. The silence of the night was broken only by the low humming of the concrete mixer and the slushing of the concrete. I started imagining people talking in the night, so I made Jamey talk to me about his webcomic indexer that he wrote in Haskel.

Lessons: A good concrete mix should look more like oatmeal, and less like pea soup. My dad recommended I put some gravel at the bottom of every post hole to keep the wood away from the dirt and slow the post rot. I recommend making sure your holes are aligned properly. Mike dug one post hole, and he misinterpreted my mark as being at the edge of the hole instead of the middle of the hole. The hole ended up being twice as wide as necessary, and a lot of concrete went in there. I pity the person who has to dig that up.

Wood

When I started this project, I read about the dangers of using wood treated with arsenic in a vegetable garden. Railroad ties are nearly as bad, because they have creosote and other nasty chemicals on them. Untreated hardwoods are the best, and I chose to buy cedar.

There's two types of cedar, "clear vertical grain cedar" and "tight knot cedar". The clear grain is taken from the heart of the tree and is very expensive. Tight knot cedar has more knots, and it's still pretty expensive. It was about $40 for one 8'x2'x2" board. On the bright side, posts are no longer treated with arsenic, so I was able to buy some cheap copper-treated cherry posts.

We learned to cut the wood a little shorter that the original measurements called for. The picture above shows that we had to shave a little off the bottom board to make it fit. After we placed the wood, I read somewhere that the wood will expand when it gets wet. You're supposed to leave an inch or two on each side, or the wood may strain and crack. My boards are too close up front, but I haven't seen many cracks so far.

Drainage

The front yard was a mess when I dug the hole. I noticed how very soggy the ground got around the side farther down the hill. Water runs downhill, and I knew I needed a good drainage system to syphon off water around my garden and down the hill. I ended up putting in 3" drainage pipe around the wooden beds and filling the sides with 2" river rock. The pipe was angled to make the water run downhill, so the corner closest to you in the picture is the highest point in the pipe system.

The picture also shows that I put building paper on all wood that would be in contact with the soil. It provides some protection from water and bugs, and (supposedly) will extend the wood's lifespan by 3-5 years.

This picture shows the coupling I bought and where the water empties into the ground. I dug a wide hole there and filled it with river rock. I made the bottom of the hole much deeper than the pipe end so water wouldn't backup in the pipe.

GOOD Dirt

I had 2 cubic yards of river rock and 5 cubic yards of compost soil mix delivered. The soil was McFarlane Bark's "scottish mix" -- 50% compost, 40% soil, and 10% sand. They gave me a discount because I got both items delivered at the same time.

Watching the guy deliver the dirt was a kick! I had no idea what to expect. I thought it was going to be a pickup truck and a couple guys to shovel the dirt out. I should have known better.

First came the river rocks.

Hydraulics rule!

The truck had a movable divider that kept the rocks and the soil separate.

Kinda looks like the truck is taking a giant crap in my driveway.

Coming together?

It took us a day to move the river rocks into place. They're very slippery and tend to roll off the shovel. Using a shovel with a big blade doesn't help because the rocks are very heavy and you can't easily push the blade through them.

It took us another day to move the dirt into the beds. It took some time because I wanted to break up the big clumps for my carrots. However, fine topsoil is much easier to move than river rock.

Or just the beginning?

There was still a lot of dirt left over. I had ordered about 2 cubic yards too many. At that point, I thought, "I wonder if I can do something with the side by the gas line after all?"

Concrete block walls

I decided to build a tiered retaining wall next to the garden.

I probably should have used concrete to hold it together, but I decided to just stack them. My reasoning was that someone might have to dig up the gas line later, and I didn't want to make it too hard. I was also mighty sick of concrete at that point.

The project isn't finished yet. I still have to do the second retaining wall this weekend. I am so close to being done! I'll post more pictures once the construction is done, and when the garden has something planted in it.