Footprint 29: Building the square foot gardens

Today was an exciting day.  A lot of preparation has gone into this.  We are building two gardens.  We started by fitting the pieces together to make sure that everything fitted correctly:

Pieces loosely put together to ensure fitting

This was follows by screwing the pieces together:

Screwing the pieces together

Here is a close-up of one of the corners:

A corner join

 Note that the inner piece is longer than the two outer sides.  This is so that things can be attached to the box.  Things that might be attached include frames for staking, net for climbing, shade cloth, wind protection fabrics.

Here is a picture of the inside of the box where the soil will ultimate be placed:

Completed box except for drainage holes

Drainage holes in the base of the box

Once the boxes were complete, we transferred them to the sunniest part of the garden, which happens to be my front lawn.  I figure it is a worthy sacrifice.  Besides, the lawn needs to be completely re-established anyway, so should I want lawn back in due course, I will start it again:

Boxes on front lawn

The boxes are currently upside down in preparation for painting.  They are extremely heavy, largely owing to the shutterply base.  I may have to rethink bases if I build more boxes in future.  It is not possible for one person to carry one box.  It takes at least two people, preferably nice strong men.

It occurred to me quite late, that it would be a good idea to put primer onto the boxes in case it rains tomorrow.  So there was this crazy lady, already decked out for bed, painting boxes in the dark.  And it is jolly cold too.  There is an icy wind swirling around.  My poor neighbours must wonder whether alzheimer's has set in.  If it is not raining tomorrow, then I will complete the primer, then add the first coat of bitumen and onwards from then.  I will blog progress on this so that anyone who may be interested in building their own boxes know what needs to be done.