Filling the Raised Beds

The view from my bedroom window provides a nice overview of the garden. It took Pakman and Weatherboy along with Junior Gardener 2 whole days to move the 8 yards of topsoil/compost from the driveway to the garden. Whew I get tired just thinking about them. Those boxes are only 2x6 framing, now I'm thinking I should have spent the extra money for 2x8's. But overall I'm very pleased with how the project is turning out. The yard slopes fairly significantly to the rear and to the left, so those beds, especially the rear ones, are actually level, but are all at different altitudes, so from this angle (and almost every angle) they look all cattywompus. That white pole is for a volleyball net (remember this was nothing but lawn about 8 days ago), the massively cemented base for it fell smack dab on the centerline of this garden rectangle, purely by coincidence. I was going to leave the pole there and make it as a bean trellis,



then I thought it needed a flag with a picture of a tomato and a corn cob on it, but I ultimately decided to take it out and plant marigolds there. The long dirt row to the right without sideboards is going to be planted with Tom Wagner's potato sampler this year~much more on that later. The 10'x15' unmulched area at the rear will be for corn, mostly. It's very dense clay and in need of lots of amendments. And no I didn't loosen the native soil in each box before having the topsoil dumped in. I'm sure the plants, for the most part, will do just fine.