Looking for Feedback - New SFG'r

sanderson wrote:The metal tubes are 8' lengths of electrical conduit for new trellises for cantaloupe, winter squash and small watermelons.  I'll be posting photos when it stops raining and I can get them assembled.  I found out that 5' beginner trellises in the ANSFG book were too short for vining beans, snow peas, and melons.  Even my one giant Roma grew to 8'-10' tall and needed extra high support.  PS,  everything, even the giant tomato, were grown in 6" of MM with weed fabric on the bottom.

Can I make one more pitch / plead about not blending the lower dirt and the upper new MM??  Your finished boxes will be 13" tall.  Allow 6" for MM, at least 1" for mulch, leaving 6" to fill at the bottom.  Depending on where you gather the garden dirt, you may accidentally introduce root starter weeds and other weed seeds.  A barrier of weed cloth, newspapers or cardboard really should be laid on top of the native dirt.  Or, put a vertical divider on one of the boxes, filling one half like I described and the other half with 12" of MM (with weed fabric underneath).  You will then have a dedicated area of a few square feet for deep root crops.

boffer wrote:

rabbithutch wrote:...May I take this chance to ask about TTs?  I saw your gallery and really liked the metal framing you made for your TTs.  I might try that idea after I get my feet wet in ground level SFGs.  When you make them, what size hardware cloth do you use?  I have some 1/2" and some 1/4" and wondered if the opening size makes any difference.  Also, does it matter what sort of weed block cloth you put over the hardware cloth?

Chicken wire wasn't strong enough; ¼ inch was overkill; ½ inch was just right.  

Any type of weed cloth should work.  One member switched to 6 mil plastic instead of weed cloth to slow down the high evaporation rate he was getting in his climate.  I've retro-fitted some of my boxes with  1 inch foil-faced foamboard in place of the weed cloth to see if it would keep my MM a little warmer  during my typically cool summer nights.

sanderson wrote:RH,  I just came across this older topic on TT.  Boffer posted it.

"Cool idea! A while back, in another thread, we were playing with numbers, and determined that a 6 inch 4x4 box full of saturated Mel's Mix weighed in the 250-300 pound range. That gives you a rough idea of how much weight the table needs to support"

sanderson wrote:Can I make one more pitch / plead about not blending the lower dirt and the upper new MM?? Your finished boxes will be 13" tall. Allow 6" for MM, at least 1" for mulch, leaving 6" to fill at the bottom. Depending on where you gather the garden dirt, you may accidentally introduce root starter weeds and other weed seeds. A barrier of weed cloth, newspapers or cardboard really should be laid on top of the native dirt. Or, put a vertical divider on one of the boxes, filling one half like I described and the other half with 12" of MM (with weed fabric underneath). You will then have a dedicated area of a few square feet for deep root crops.