New Year Project

not my photo (or my hand!)

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I created my raised beds from a combination of sod, excavated dirt and compost.  I still think the plan could have succeeded if I had more time, but the break down of the sod chunks is taking too long.  I've read over and over that carrots and potatoes want a loose soil to spread freely and the plastic sod backing mesh is going to create a problem for that.  The only solution that I can think of is to manually screen the soil in the beds and break up the sod chunks while also removing the plastic mesh.  Lots of work, not hard work, but lots of it.  I've got an email out to friends and family requesting help next weekend, we'll see... ;0)

The plan will be to set the screen on saw horses over the row, shovel the dirt and sod onto the screen and let it fall right back down into place.  I'm going to lose some volume so I may purchase some additional dirt to offset the loss.  Sod and it's roots will be tossed into the compost pile of course.  More on this later including before and after photos.