Amending Soil and Building Borders for Beds

[jerryinfla]

I expanded my garden plot with 3 more 4' X 8' beds this winter. First I had to move a sprinkler head and reroute the underground feeder line because it ran directly through the area I planned to work. As in other beds, I removed the topsoil, set it aside then dug out and disposed of about a foot of subsoil. Then I filled the hole back up with a mixture of spent mushroom substrate and the topsoil that I had set aside. I built borders for beds on my driveway using 2" X 6" X 8' treated pine lumber braced in each corner with a 4" X 4" block. Then I transported the framed borders to the garden plot on a wagon train. After I got the borders set, I leveled them and worked compost, rabbit manure and cottonseed meal into the soil of the last two beds. I had already planted potatoes in the first bed and the other two are reserved for tomato transplants some of which would be in the ground by now but a late freeze is forecast for tonight and tomorrow night. As we all know it's a lot easier to bring tomatoes in pots inside to protect them than to try and protect them after they're planted in the garden. Here are some photos of the soil amending and border building processes and the finished garden plot.