Teaching Garden

The Teaching Gardens (raised bed and container) provide a way for UUCF members and anyone from our local community to learn about best methods for edible gardening. We’re working with local Master Gardeners to learn best methods for successful gardening while setting an example of sustainable living. Why a Teaching Garden? Because we believe in living gently on the earth, and that means minimizing the use of natural resources needed to feed ourselves. Food doesn’t magically appear. This garden can start to teach us what it means and what it takes to build a sustainable food culture.

If you would like to learn more or join us in this effort, please contact Mathew Taylor.

Contents:

Our Goals and Approach
Pre-requisites: Sun, Soil, Water
Session 1: Preparing the Space
Session 2: Building a Raised Bed
Session 3: Good Soil
Session 4: Your Garden Plan
Session 5: Planting and Irrigation
Maintenance
New: Container Gardening, Composting, and more!

You can download these instructions, handy shopping list spreadsheet, VA Tech Planting Guide, garden plan template (you must change this file extension to ppt) to make the project easier.

Our Goals and Approach

What philosophies drove our decisions on how to make the garden?

Something that others can easily replicate
Grow healthy plants for us and the planet
Minimize effort (self water, minimize weeding)
Minimize cost where possible, while meeting the goals above

Based on Goal One, we decided to get all of our purchased items from two common stores, Home Depot and Merrifield Gardens. Goal Two drove the desire minimize use of PVC, careful selection of bed frame material, and organic soil amendments. Goal Three inspired the selection of the raised bed and the use of a water timer and irrigation system. And Goal Four drive our choice of lumber (albeit environmentally acceptable) for our bed frame and mushroom compost as a key soil enricher.

We are working on 2 garden sizes. The larger is a 8ft. x 4ft. raised bed for a yard. The other is an 18 gallon container for a porch. We’ll focus on the raised bed here, and provide a separate section on the container garden. We based our design on two very similar designs from Sunset Magazine and Popular Mechanics, including a couple of our own improvements.

Pre-requisites:Sun, Soil, Water

What you need:

Tape measure

Your very first step is to locate a proper space that gets about 8 hours per day hours of sunshine, but is also reasonably near an outside faucet. Measure the distance from the faucet to where your bed will be. You will need to run a hose to the bed. Is that OK, or will it interfere with lawn mowing? If so, as was the case for us, you may need to trench and bury your hose, and in that case, may want to purchase 1.25” PVC tubing to run the hose through rather than burying the hose directly in the ground.…more on that in session 4, but for now the idea is to select a spot in the sun that is not too far from your faucet.

As for soil, we chose a raised bed where we added purchased soil. Raised beds certainly cost more than just planting in the ground, but our raised bed enables us to provide better soil with better drainage for happier plants for years to come.

Session 1: Preparing the Space

What You’ll Need:

Tape Measure
Pick axe
Trenching shovel
Wheelbarrow or Cart

In this step, we needed to remove the grass that was there already. Break up the sod with the pick axe and remove it with the cart, creating your 8 ft. x 4 ft. space, or slightly larger rectangle (you’ll need a few extra inches to install your raised bed).

Session 2: Building a Raised Bed

Building the bed includes both obtaining the materials and putting it together. Thus we’ve split it into those phases.

• Session 2a: Bamboo and Tool Hunting

What You’ll Need:

2 bamboo poles (we’ll explain below) from your local bamboo forest
Hacksaw

One of things we will need for our bed (the hoop cover system) are 6 tubes a little larger than 1.5” or so in diameter and each a foot long – you’ll need one or two poles for this. These tubes will hold our PVC hoops. The alternative is to purchase a single 10ft. 1.25” PVC tube in Session 2b.

PVC in contact with soil will decay and leach chemicals over time. Some may say those will be negligible, but we know where to find bamboo so we chose that route instead.

Use the hacksaw to cut bamboo into sizes that will fit into your vehicle. Gather enough to make 6 – 12” tubes. Beware that each section has a membrane that will block the tube so essentially you need 6 sections, each of 12” or greater.

Look at the spreadsheet we’ve provided and determine which items you already have, which can be borrowed, and which will require purchase. Mark as such in the supplied column.

Session 2b: Home Depot

What You’ll Need:

Minivan or Truck to hold 8’ wood and 10’ PVC.
Flat-bed cart in the store

In case you are getting angry that we chose wood lumber for our raised bed, let us explain the decision. You could build a frame out of any of the following: standard pressure treated lumber, cedar, a composite (like Trex), or untreated lumber which you could treat with linseed oil to keep it from quickly decomposing. By far the cheapest is treated lumber. Lumber used to be treated with arsenic which would leach into the soil over time and might get absorbed by nearby plants. More recently, the industry switched to copper (ACQ) which was much better, but still created concern by some gardeners. One new technology is micronized copper (MCQ) which claims to release only 5% of the chemicals that ACQ does. After our Internet research, we decided this was good enough.

You can use the separate spreadsheet as a shopping list. You may already have some of these or be able to obtain them from friends.

What You’ll Buy (also on our shopping list spreasheet:

Gardening Department

Roll of Mesh (to keep moles and other burrowers)
Roll of Deer Fencing
Roll of Garden Fabric (to retard weeds)
Hose (used later for irrigation to reach the bed from your faucet)
Watering timer

Hardware Department

24 Screws (hold the hoop-holder brackets in place
32 3.5" Wood Screws (hold the bed frame together)
Package of about 20 hook screws (to attach deer fencing and garden fabric)
Staple gun and staples (to attach mesh to bottom of the bed)
Battery for water timer as required

Plumbing Department

3 – 10 ft. long. 1/2” PVC pipes (3 hoops)
1 – 10 ft. long 1” PVC pipe (hoop holders if you did not use bamboo)
1.25” PVC for your hose and 2 elbows for the ends (used later for irrigation)
12 – galvanized 1” pipe brackets (hold the hoop holders in place)
Roll of pipe tape (used later for irriigation)

Lumber Department

6 – 8 ft. long 2x6s (sides of the bed)
1 – 8 ft. long 2x4 (posts to hold the bed in place

They will cut your wood for you in the store. Ask to have 2 of the 8 ft. 2x6s in half (into 4 - 4 ft. pieces) and the cut the 2x4 into 6 - 16” inch pieces.

Session 2C: Assemble and Install the Bed

What You’ll Need:

A pencil
Drills and drill bits (for holes and screw heads). If you can get 2 drills, have one with a bit for making holes, the other ready for driving screws.
Hacksaw (to cut PVC)
Staple Gun (to attach mesh to frame)
Level (to ensure bed is level)
Dirt Shovel(s)
Scissors (for cutting deer plastic fencing and garden fabric)
Sheers or pliers (for cutting metal mesh)
A few twist ties (for tying deer fence pieces together as needed)

Assemble the Frame

Take wood screws and find a drill bit that is slightly thinner so you can drill pilot holes through your wood.
Lay out end first layer of frame on the ground, 2 8 ft. boards, 2 – 4 ft. boards, and 4 posts for the corners.
Align a post with an 8 ft. board. Mark 3 staggered locations for holes on post that will penetrate the board. Alternate between drilling a hole through the post and into the 8 ft. piece, then take a screw and drive that in. Repeat with other 2 screws.
Now take the 4 ft. section and drill holes near the edge so it penetrates the thin side of the post. Drive the screw for that hole. Then repeat once more for second hole and screw. (5 screws total for each corner post). • Now build the second layer of the frame, attaching at corners. (5 more screws in each corner).
Remaining posts go at the center of each 8 ft. section. (use tape measure to mark center). Insert 3 staggered screws for each post. These will help keep your bed from bowing outward from the weight of the dirt.

Install the Mesh

Cut mesh to 4 ft. by 8’ (or slightly longer).
Lay mesh over bed and trim mesh to enable it to lay flat against the bed.
Use staple gun and staples to staple mesh to bed.

Install the Bed

Flip it over.
Pre-dig holes for the 6 posts.
Place bed down with posts in holes. Use level to ensure bed is level all around.

Install the Hoops System

Cut the 1” PVC or bamboo into 6 - 12 in” sections using the hacksaw.
If using bamboo, make sure it is large enough to accommodate the ½” PVC tubes. If there are membranes, use large drill bit to hollow it out so that the ½” PVC will go through.
Install the bamboo or PVC using the brackets and screws (4 screws each x 6 brackets = 24 screws)
Screw in the screw hooks about every 2 feet in the middle of the upper rail of your bed.
Drape deer fencing over hoops. Cut to size. If two pieces are need, seam together with twist ties. Attach to hooks.

Session 3: Good Soil at Merrifields

What You’ll Need:

Truck (to avoid delivery cost)
Wheelbarrow or Cart
Tarp (optional, to keep your truck clean)
Dirt Shovel(s) and metal rake(s)

What You’ll Buy (also on our shopping list spreadsheet)

1 yard of topsoil (organically amended if possible)
6 bags mushroom compost
Lime (5 lb.)
Organic fertilizer (8 lb.)

Go to the garden area to buy the lime and fertilizer in bags. Go to checkout and ask to add 6 bags of mushroom compost and 1 yard of topsoil to your bill. Drive to the proper areas to have your items loaded.

At your site, use the deposit a layer of topsoil into your bed. As directed on the label, spread the appropriate amount of lime and 2 bags of compost. Mix in. Add Another layer of dirt, then 2 more bags of compost and the appropriate amount of fertilizer (see label). Repeat, making a nice healthy dirt/compost/fertilizer lasagna until your bed is filled.

Session 4: Your Garden Plan

It’s time to decide what to plant! Here's a powerpoint template you can use to create your own plan. We started a little late for leaf greens so we chose a combination of seeds (zucchini, chard, beans) and plants (tomato, cucumber, yellow peppers, and a watermelon.

You will need to:

Consider each plant, its growing season, and how much space it requires. Refer to provided guide from yyy.
Next, using this Powerpoint file template fill in your bed with the plants. Now you know about how many plants your bed can hold and how many of each to purchase. Make that list to take shopping.
Now draw in the irrigation system so that you can reach each plant or bed area. The irrigation system supports splitters (also called a barbed cross), in-line drippers, and end-line drippers. To be economical, we use just a few splitters and end-line drippers and mainly use in-line drippers which perform two functions at once – watering a plant and extending the line.

Session 5: Plants and Irrigation

What you’ll need:

if you need to bury hose from your faucet to the bed:
Trenching shovel
PVC tubes, connectors, and elbows you purchased earlier
Hose you may have purchased earlier
Pipe tape you purchased earlier
Watering timer and battery you purchased earlier
A roll of plastic wrap to keep partially attached parts from getting dirty while assemble them
Scissors to cut tubing

What you’ll buy (also on our shopping list spreadsheet):

Plants and Seeds from your Plan
Tomato stakes for each tomato plant
Irrigation Components:
- ¾” Hose to Pipe Thread Anti-Syphon
- ¾” Hose to Pipe Thread Adapter
- 25’ Irrigation Tubing
- ¼” Barbed Cross (4/pkg.)
- 4” Stakes (10/pkg.)
- 1 GPH Mini-Inline Drippers (10/pkg.)
- ½ GPH Mini-Inline Drippers (10/pkg.)
- 1 GPH Pressure Compensating Drippers (10/pkg.)

Back to Merrifield’s

Visit Merrifields again and purchase the items as listed above (and on the spreadsheet)

Time to Plant!

(Optional) Unroll garden fabric, cut, and attach with staple gun. Use scissors to cut fabric.
Plant as indicated in your Plan. Amazingly, this is the easy part!

At the Faucet

For each connection listed in this session, use pipe tape to prevent leakage
- Attach ant-siphon to the faucet
- Attach hose on other end

Burying Hose

If you decide to bury your hose between the faucet and the bed:
- trench as needed
- thread hose through PVC
- Place PVC into trench and bury

At the Bed

On outlet side near bed, continue to connect hose:
- Insert battery into timer. Attach timer to hose
- Attach Hose to Pipe Adapter to timer
Attach full length of tubing to adapter. Turn on water to flush tubing (clear any dirt that might clog the drippers.
String tubing to head of the bed. Cut tubing and attach Barbed Cross (splitter). Wrap Barbed Cross in a small piece of plastic wrap temporarily while you attach each of the remaining three ends.
Attach tubing to other end and proceed to first plant o Cut tubing an insert dripper.
Attach tubing to other side of dripper and continue to next plant.
Repeat for all plants in that line. At the end of a line, use a non-Inline dripper.
Return to Barbed Cross and repeat for other lines and drippers.
Every few feet, use stake assemblies to hold tubing in place at desired locations
Test and tighten connections as needed
Set Timer…

Congratulations!!!! Your Garden is Complete!!!

Maintenance

On a regular basis, verify that your things are going well: