If there was a possibility you'd have to move your boxes...

If there was a possibility you'd have to move your boxes would you do anything different under them? I am leasing a piece of land away from my house where I keep my chickens and my gardens and I'm not sure how long I'll have this piece of property. It's on a year to year lease right now. I'm just about to put the mix in my boxes and was going to either lay newspapers or cardboard boxes underneath them. I have put a lot of effort and some money into getting the stuff for my mix and if I had to give up my piece of land I'd definitely want to move my Mel's Mix. Should I put something different underneath? I was thinking some of the plastic weed block but I'm not sure that would be any easier to shovel than simply using a thick cardboard box.

Edited to add: I have thought about plywood on the bottom of the boxes but then I'd have to spend another $15 per box (so $60 total ) plus drive all the way into town again (we live quite a ways from Menards) and I'd still have to shovel the mix out if I ever moved the boxes.

If I couldn't go the plywood route, I would use cardboard covered with weed cloth and maybe staple the weed cloth to the insides of the box. I lined my tabletops with hardware cloth and plastic and later had to dig out all the MM to stablize the setup. The hardware cloth wiring provided enough support to the plastic that scooping out the MM was only a chore not a Hurculean task.


Kay

I am in the same boat. I'm leasing the home I live in now. I just have weedcloth on the bottom of my boxes. It should be pretty easy to get almost all if not all of my mix into drums so I can move it.

@dizzygardener wrote:I am in the same boat. I'm leasing the home I live in now. I just have weedcloth on the bottom of my boxes. It should be pretty easy to get almost all if not all of my mix into drums so I can move it.

I recently moved and all I had on the bottom was weedcloth. It was very easy for me to remove the MM from the box since the weedcloth acted as a separator. there was a little bit left behind but probably not more than a 5 gallon bucket between the 4X4 and 3X3 I moved.

The difficult part was transporting the MM. I wish I had planned better and purchased some drums so I could have had the movers take it.

I've bought weed cloth in case I want to move the bed. Hope you don't get turned off your plot.

What sort of drums are you guys talking about for moving MM? We are moving this summer. I only have 1 4x8 box, but I for sure want to take my MM with me!

I used one layer of weed cloth and it wasn't enough. I have grass peeking up through my veggies in a few places. It looks like the wood has already begun to deteriorate at the bottom of the box, and it's only a little over a year old. When I replace the wood, I'm probably going to use bricks or cinderblocks so I don't have to keep building a new box. I will probably also use a double layer of weed cloth next time, too.

Spend the extra money and do the plywood bottoms. You won't regret it. Mine have plywood bottoms and legs and can be lifted and moved dirt, plants and all, if need be. In the broad scheme of things, what's another 15 bucks per box?