Well, that was not as easy as we'd supposed. Today was the day that Camille and I sunk our first raised bed into the sandy backyard...and filled it with compost. So much compost. So much heavy compost, the majority of which will rest unused by the side of our driveway, and will one day come to be known as "Compost Hill" or "Mt. Compost" or "That Place Where Camille Buried Her First Husband (and Smiled More Than She Should Have Even Though the Sun Was Intermittently Yet Directly in Her Eyes."
Ah, but before the compost went into the raised bed, the raised bed was treated with thirty-two feet of polymer lining. One of the men at the discount lumber yard suggested the idea, predicting that the sides of the raised beds would rot considerably slower if they weren't directly in contact with the dirt. An excellent idea. Better still, Camille and I had a landmark moment: we were able to work together hammering the lining to the inside of the raised bed without (me) giving helpful suggestions on the best way to hammer a nail into wood or (Camille) rushing through the job, quality be damned. Hurray for us.
Once the lining was in, we dug four post-holes in the dirt, and sunk the bed. Then came the compost, four heaping wheelbarrows full. This was around the time when we realized that Mt. Compost (delivered in two hydraulic truck-fulls over the weekend) would become a permanent fixture. It's not that we won't be able to find a use for so much compost, it's that we'll never be able to move it. We just don't have the will.The first raised bed is in the ground though, and there's something to be said for a good, hard day of work. Only five more to go.
(Note: the photo at the top of this entry of a potential murder/cover-up is actually a photo of the four heaping wheelbarrows full of compost that were used in the raised bed, not Mt. Compost. Mt. Compost is considerably larger, and set twenty-five body-lengths to the right)
--David
