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Building Raised Garden Beds

September 22, 2015 by Ashley Hackshaw

My fall garden is planted! While we were working on the picket fence for the garden around the train depot we were also working on raised garden beds:

I knew that I wanted to use cedar to keep my garden chemical free, that I wanted to stay away from pallets and any pressure-treated or chemically-treated wood:

I ordered the cedar wood from Lowe’s for 7 foot by 4 foot beds that would be 12″ tall. Each bed consists of two of these 6″ tall rectangles that we cut and assembled using deck screws. (For special widths and customized lengths check with your local Pro Services department.)

All the rectangles stacked up and ready to move towards the garden:

4″ x 4″ cedar posts were cut to 12″ and placed in the corners of boxes. The 3″ deck screws were drilled in high on one side…

…and then low on the other:

Alternated so they wouldn’t hit each other:

We moved them down to the garden one by one and leveled them using the existing dirt. Where there was a slope we used the post hole bar to dig a little trench for one side. If they start to move around put in a few rebar stakes at the inside corners but they aren’t going anywhere right now:

To fill the beds I used a mixture of 1/3 native soil from our yard, 1/3 manure (bagged), and 1/3 top soil* (bagged):

*You can also substitute Nature’s Helper or really high quality compost for the top soil if you have it available.

The native soil was just tilled up in another section of the yard (where it wouldn’t be missed) and added first as a base. We added more native soil to mix in with the manure and top solid:

Then we added a few bags of aged cow manure and top soil:

Our soil is fairly acidic so I talked to our local NC State Agriculture Agent Christy to see how much lime I should add to the soil:

The most accurate way to add lime would be to have the soil tested for it’s pH levels but the rule of thumb in the area I live in is 4 pounds of lime per 100 square feet. For each 28 square foot bed that translated to about 1.1 pounds of lime per bed. I measured it out using a small postage scale:

Sprinkled in the lime:

And tilled the dirt by hand to mix it all up:

Then it was time to plant some seed for the fall garden:

After a few days my kale plants are already sprouting!

Kale is a very hardy plant in the cool weather. A great resource for fall planting can be found here.

I’ve left a little room in the garden for more beds eventually but I’m not sure what shape those will take yet:

One last note: I wouldn’t suggest using pallets or discarded wood for raised beds. Many pallets and treated wood have chemicals in them that can end up in your food. Hardwoods such as redwood, cedar and juniper are great for garden beds and will resist rot. It involves a little more upfront cost but at least your garden will be organic!

Stayed tuned to see upcoming DIY projects involving the garden and the train depot! Oh and the pea gravel…my favorite. Stay tuned for that too.

You can follow along real time at @lilblueboo on Instagram.

All the projects are indexed here:

Click here to read more about the Old Depot Project.

The Old Depot Project is sponsored by Lowe’s Home Improvement.

Found Objects

September 20, 2015 by Ashley Hackshaw

I like to walk alone on country paths, rice plants and wild grasses on both sides, put each for down on the earth in mindfulness, knowing that I walk on the wondrous earth. In such moments existence is a miraculous and mysterious reality. People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black curious eyes of a child – our own two eyes. All is a miracle. Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness

I love filling my pockets with things I find on a walk or while working around the yard. Little treasures. Looking closely at the little snail shells you can see the layers where each snail has added to his shell as he grew. And the cicada wing looks like it might have just fallen off of a garden fairy. A piece of pottery that with the letters RTH AM…North American?

And all of these teeny, tiny flat rocks were a reddish clay color until I soaked them in water and their varying colors were revealed:

I love the fall when things begin to fall from the trees. If I stay in the same place long enough I become a target. I can hear the squirrels scurrying above me and suddenly a nut will drop with a thud to the ground. And if I look closely I I can see the tiny gnaw marks used to detach it from the branch. They leave their littered shells all around:

Tiny pine cones, a dime, a petal from a silk flower and other odds and ends:

Learning to see becomes a meditation. There are endless treasures from the earth. Years ago I would have swept these things into oblivion with a broom or rake, dismissing their significance. Now I pick them up and I am giddy arranging them like someone might arrange a collection of figurines or precious coins. And it’s almost impossible to describe or understand the enjoyment that I get out of it.

I think Annie Dillard’s chapter “Seeing” in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is one of the most beautiful pieces I’ve ever read. I come back to it over and over:

There are lots of things to see, unwrapped gifts and free surprises. The world is fairly studded and strewn with pennies cast broadside from a generous hand.

A Place Called Cataloochee

September 17, 2015 by Ashley Hackshaw

If there are any ghosts in the Great Smoky Mountains they are definitely in Cataloochee:

Cataloochee was once a peaceful, prosperous community for the families that lived there, until the rumors of the formation of the national park started to filter in from the outside. By the late 1930’s most of the families would be forced to leave. Some of the structures were preserved like the Palmer House:

Layers of peeling wallpaper:

So many beautiful textures in this place, like this old floral linoleum:

This is the Caldwell House built in 1906:

I just loved the inside of the house and the remnants of paper on the walls:

Newspapers and Sears catalogs were used to cover the walls to keep out drafts:

The old Cataloochee Beech Grove schoolhouse, built in 1901, is the only school that remains now after the families moved out for the park in the 1940’s. As we approached it we could see an elk resting in the woods. I didn’t take a photo because it’s wise to give elk their space.

The desks and blackboards are still there as if the students just walked out one day, which they kind of did:

The community is now mostly grown back into forest…no more farmland or orchards. While Brett and I were clearing the area for our garden the last few weeks I remarked a few times: Could you imagine having to manually fell trees and clear land for farming like this?

Cataloochee is way up over a mountain, surrounded by 6,000 foot high ridges, so far up and down that as we were driving there Brett asked: Are you sure there’s something at the end of this road? It makes you wonder how the settlers even found the area in the first place. And then when they found it they had to clear it to create farm land. It’s a beautiful place but also eerily sad. Over ten million people visited the Great Smoky Mountains National Park last year, making it the most visited park in the country. I often wonder how many of those visitors know the history of sacrifice that went into creating it. I’m so glad some of these buildings were preserved in the park so that visitors can imagine the community that was once there.

P.S. I think one thing that really shocked me was the amount of graffiti left in these old building. Sad that people can’t have enough self control to deface historic property.

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I read the book Cataloochee a few months ago, a fictional account of the community. I loved being transported back to such a simpler time and being able to imagine what it was like living there:

Cataloochee by Wane Caldwell

“Against the breathtaking backdrop of Appalachia comes a rich, multilayered post—Civil War saga of three generations of families–their dreams, their downfalls, and their faith. Cataloochee is a slice of southern Americana told in the classic tradition of Flannery O’Connor and William Faulkner. Nestled in the mountains of North Carolina sits Cataloochee. In a time when “where you was born was where God wanted you,” the Wrights and the Carters, both farming families, travel to the valley to escape the rapid growth of neighboring towns and to have a few hundred acres all to themselves. But progress eventually winds its way to Cataloochee, too, and year after year the population swells as more people come to the valley to stake their fortune.”

More of my favorite books on the area are listed here.