Bryan Greenbeard of Minnesota's 2017 Plans

Ill look through the photos i took last year and see if i managed to snag any of it while in bloom.

Just cut 96 fence pickets that will be the sides of the garden and compost bin.  and stacked them all nice and petty like.

A few photo updates.
First off i found this awesome wheelbarrel at mendards.  the 6 sq feet one was half the price of the 8 sq footer.. so i went with the 6.   it has a double wide front wheels   very cool.

Stacked up the boards, stuff on the bottom is for the compost and gates.  stuff up top is the sides of the garden.

I did upgrade from the pine pickets to cedar.. actually won a few hundred bucks on scratch offs, enough that it cost nothing to get the 96 pickets, even counting the tickets costs.

5 of the pickets stacked atop each other are this long 30.5" roughly.. so thats my raised beds height before taking into account how much it settles into the ground.

OCD kicked in and i had to line the boards up so all the tags were facing the same way..

This last one is of what the dog eared sections look like.

I made a video wrap up of what i got put together yesterday.  Hope you all Enjoy

Here is part two of the video.   Yesterday i "Plugged" all those parts together as well as the other parts i hadnt finished building.   Just gotta do the end of the L section.     But i ran out of the longer cedar and didnt have long enough white pines.    Dads running to home depot for a couple things for him and mom so will pick me up the two other upright beams i need.   In the meanwhile please enjoy my hard work yesterday, while i go out and bolt in those dog eared sections as a kind of trim work to hide the screws and joints.

part 3

Really taking shape!

I agree with Sanderson, it is certainly coming together.
Instead of using fill, you could build a 2x4 table and put plywood on top, drill some holes and cover with plastic and weed cloth. May be less expensive that filling all that in. Also it won't settle like the fill will. Of course in a few years, you'll have to replace the plywood.

As for your downspout. maybe you could get a rain barrel and collect the water.

Thanks the both of you

For the fill..  I went out today and brought a few wheel barrels full of branches and smaller stuff (kindling) back that the train had broken up over the winter and left in the grassy stretch along the tracks that me and another guy with rider mowers take turns mowing; and another couple loads from the other way along the tracks where one of the other neighbors asked me to clean out the brush.   

Soo.. I was gonna use alot of that stuff as the base of the fill. mix in all that is left of the leaves and grass from the fall in my halfhearted attempt at composting as well as the grass clippings. as well as the good soil ive got excavate to level things. and the grass that we clip in the next couple of weeks.  

Basically, I was gonna fill it with good dead organic stuff and top soil and let things settle over the month.  I wont have funds to get the MM for the top of it til May. 

Far as a rain barrel, that was my first thought, but looking into it, city ord forbids it.  I could rig something in the garden.. but i dont wanna risk it.  perhaps when it rots and ive gotta rebuild something permanent.

And apparently a bunch of a wood chips that my girlfriends friend offered me.

Any chance of filling part of the bottom with sand? All organic will decompose and the level will really drop. Of course, budget also determines many things.

unless you know some free sand available in MN there be no chance.    next month i get 200-300 bucks to use to fill it/ get heirloom seeds.

Greenbeard wrote:unless you know some free sand available in MN there be no chance.    next month i get 200-300 bucks to use to fill it/ get heirloom seeds.

If you're in the outer ring of suburbs of the Twin Cities, you're near farm land.  If you're on the Southwest portion you might be out of luck, but any of the northern edges or eastern edge farms are near the moraine field from the ice age glaciers and the farms that plow their fields all have rock piles.  

What about filing the base with rocks, then layering your soil to fill the gaps, then weed block on top then your compost mix?

Looks wonderful, GB! And I had to laugh about the tags all being the same way... Sounds like me! :-)

Is there anyone nearby who has horses, goats, chickens, etc? Maybe you can score some free manures....

Im sure there is..  but not in my city.  I am in very much an urban area, the first ring of suburb's around Minneapolis NW area.    The last local farm here was broken up and sold off by the city to a couple different developers when the family died a couple of years ago.

Part of the problem with filling with rocks, with my back i cant ever lift over 40#, or risk no walking ever again. Thats alot of some some mighty small rocks/pebbles that i can move.

Was thinking swapping a few wagon loads of rocks from the train tracks.

I am uber impressed with your progress, which just goes to show further examples of excellent Midwest craftsmanship.

I hope you solve your fill issue as economically and simply as possible, because I can already see the abundant harvest in my head.

Maybe, you can find something at your Menard's that will be useful as a filler, and in the process, you can save big money.

Good luck.

im gonna wander thru home depot and menards and fleet farm tomorrow see if can get any ideas.    there is a farmers market going on tomorrow a couple exits past either HD or FF/M so was gonna hit up HD then the market then the other two on the way home.

When ive gone to them before, it has been to get A B and C and i never bothered to look at D-Z items.   Cuz for me either i stick to the list and its a 5-6 min stop... or i forget the list and its a 4 hour stop..   especially one of the craft stores, few mths ago  I went into michaels with my GF one day.  She finished getting her stuff, and went thru a couple other stores, then to cub to get her groceries, picked up her granddaughter from daycare and daughter from work. and got back to me in michaels before id gotten thru the whole store and figured out what i was gonna get.

Today gonna go over to folks and hang out with mom and the boys (couple of half golden lab/aussy sheepdogs brothers) then paint a couple minis.    Actually snowed here sunday-monday overnight.  So no point trying to dig to level things.. that is my saturday plan while gf is at purse bingo with mom. dad and a couple other buddies are gonna pop over and lend me a hand.  Ive not touched a paint brush at all yet in a couple of weeks.   Ive got a trio of orcs, a pair of goblins and a femar miniature from heroquest that ive gotta paint for a challenge this month.

on another note.  I found out after i built this that.. that moms moms dad was a carpenter who built a house that is still standing with cousins living at the place.  and dad has more then a few wood workers in the family.  Dunno why nobody ever mentioned them before.. im 39 for cripes sake and its never come up before...*shrug*  the only person i though that worked with wood was my dads biological dad that i met in my teens.

Ah, the Fleet Farm.  What lovely memories of shopping at the Man Mall.  Mrs. Geezer used to live in Lyn-Lake and still has a couple of very good friends that work at the corner of Lake and Lyndale.

With such great resources, I am positive you will find the answer to satisfy your needs.

BTW, I was a former general contractor, and the thing I knew best was to never hire myself as a carpenter or trim man.  I couldn't drive a 16 penny nail straight if you primed it a couple inches into the lumber for me.

But, I used to freak out my frame crews when I told them from the start how long the diagonals would have to be to 1/32 of an inch in order for the houses to be perfectly square.  They never heard of Pythagorus or his theorem, and they thought I was some sort of Merlin.

Beautiful view of the lake (from the deck?).

Thank you.  Yes that was deck was built behind the car garage.. about a year and half before i bought the place.   They also finished the basement about 3 months before i made my offer.   It was amazing.  

Im at my buddies watching the new mad max on wednesday night.   phone in car.  go out to car afterwards. text from mom. facebook message from mom and sister and another friend.  and four steam messages from my friends that live across the street from here and a voicemail from a drunk friend and her hubby in Conn that were all house hunting for me..   All of them said look check out this house in Crystal..   I did when i got home.   Drove by it on the way but at 3am its hard to see things without getting out and walking in some random persons yeard so i didnt get out.    There was an open house on Friday.
Nobody else went so was here the whole time.  Set up private look on sunday.  Made offer on monday. week of negotiation. i got it for what it was worth to me.

I get here for the 1st open house.  Best friend and his nephew are here checking out the wiring and electronic stuff as they are IT guys. Brothers wandering about looking at random stuff.   Dads checking out the structure.   Mom and I got there last.  I figure in my head.  all those people know more then i do about buildings. So let them look at the house. Ill just walk about and get a "feel" for the place.  So kick off sandals and walk over the entire yard.  Nothing bit my feet.. not even under the pine trees (has since, but not that first walk thru)  And i saw a 2nd garage in the back yard... that owner was using to store a pickup truck he built, a few snowmobiles and 4wheelers.  I saw a gaming and painting room. Perfect size for what i needed.

Then i go look at the view from the deck with mom.. and it looks amazing.   I said yup then.. before even going inside the house.

I get inside.. everything is finished. basement has a bedroom, wetbar, jacuzi tub and a closet that lines up so i can eventually connect the gaming garage and the house as 1 building.

This place has everything and some that i needed or wanted out of a house.  Great sun in the yard. near water and train, not too far from folks, fenced in mostly, near church, near public transportation, enough room that when i found someone she could move her stuff in too and would be room.    

Funny enough.. about a month after i got the place. buddy brings over a gal for new years eve party.  her and i hit it off talking that night. couple weeks later started dating exclusive.. we just passed 15 months on the 15th.   

I usually watch the sunrise from the deck before i go sleep in the mornings.

Well Ive done some work tonight. ill be uploading a video later.

Basically i took apart my compost bin from last year to use the chicken wire to make the top part of my raised beds/fence.   In the process decided that i would add some of the compost (though its still mostly leaves.. i did successfully make some dirt over the winter! ) to beds to get things started.

Ive got a 6 cubic foot wheel barrel.  So i used that to measure and added a wheel barrel full to each of the 8 sections.     Then i went over to the wood piles and started grabbing logs.   filled it up a good layer of those.   Gonna take some pictures (lightsaber has been charging for light) and a short video update after i post this.  then will level it off with smaller sticks from the burn pile and finally add another barrel full of the compost to before i crash out for the night.   If im still awake by sunrise. ill take a little video or pictures of it.

hope you all are having a great day.

Did not end up having enough chicken wire.. i could do 2-3 more sections with what ive got on hand.  I did get the framework squared away and both half are totally level      very happy that worked out.

Next video ill take the sections out and show ya the beds.  filling them still with leaves and such.

In the Past couple of weeks. ive flown to florida and driven back up to minnesota with my brother-in-law and my furry niece (sis and his german shepard/chow chow mix) we had to get the back yard finished up and fenced in so she could be left in the yard and we not worry about her running to the lake a house away to go swimming, as she has already done.

I got all the chicken wire in place, scratched my arms up good, but it was far far too hot to wear sleaves.  bro build that fence between the house and L section. i came up with the plan but he did all the predrilling of holes and leveling and hanging of the upright pickets.    Its low enough i can still reach over to turn the hose on or off.

Hope you enjoy the video.   In the next couple of weeks will be gather the mel's mix components and tossing them together and filling the beds.  after a couple heavy trains go by ill get my measurements from top of wood to top of the hempspex fill to get the grow area to fill with MM.   It will be a tad more then 6" as each board is 5.5" wide/tall when flipped on the side.   should allow me to put carrots whereever i want though.

I'll be coming up with a blueprint for whats gonna go where in the next couple of days.
Mel's book got here about ten minutes before i left to go to the airport last week.  havnt even looked thru it yet.   GF got me the q/a book my birthday which is /was rather helpful.