09-25-2021, 07:57 AM
Finally got the soil. Three yards of bulk "garden mix" - red clay mixed with sand, compost, and leaf mulch. Not exactly top-notch, but less than one-third the cost of buying bagged soil. Three loads dumped into the bed of a friend's pick-up and hand-shoveled into the beds on top of the branches, twigs. leaves, and compost that I used to fill the bottom half of the cement block beds and two-thirds of the 30" metal raised beds. Now come the back spasms.
HOOPS! There it is.
1/2" emt conduit pipe fitted into 3/4" conduit that has been cemented into the blocks. The hoops can be used for hot-housing, shade cloth, or bird netting, as necessary. Against the fence you can see 50"x8' cattle panels that can be attached to unbent conduit pipes and used as a trellis. Just remove the hoops and slide the trellis pipes into place. At the very left you can see the corner of the material used for the old, non-meshed beds. Built them up to make a shorter bed three planks high and used the old soil to fill it. Still no mesh but I plan on using it for garlic, onions, and other alliums that critters apparently don't care for.
Cheaper than Birdies Beds, but are they?
Yes. Yes, they are. Birdies Beds come with a rubber safety gasket, which I had to purchase for these; and watching some youtubes videos I got the impression that the larger Birdies Beds come with braces to keep them from bowing out when filled, which again, I had to buy for these. But Birdies Beds also come with shipping costs which, once again, these did not. So in the end, the additional ~$50 for these beds still doesn't bring the cost up to the base cost of an equivalent Birdies Bed. On the other hand, the panels for tall Birdies Beds are full height, while these were two short panels that are bolted together to make a tall panel. I also suspect that the metal might be slightly thicker in a Birdies Bed, so it's possible that they would be the better long-term investment, but for the immediate-term....
Post supervised by Grrl.
HOOPS! There it is.
1/2" emt conduit pipe fitted into 3/4" conduit that has been cemented into the blocks. The hoops can be used for hot-housing, shade cloth, or bird netting, as necessary. Against the fence you can see 50"x8' cattle panels that can be attached to unbent conduit pipes and used as a trellis. Just remove the hoops and slide the trellis pipes into place. At the very left you can see the corner of the material used for the old, non-meshed beds. Built them up to make a shorter bed three planks high and used the old soil to fill it. Still no mesh but I plan on using it for garlic, onions, and other alliums that critters apparently don't care for.
Cheaper than Birdies Beds, but are they?
Yes. Yes, they are. Birdies Beds come with a rubber safety gasket, which I had to purchase for these; and watching some youtubes videos I got the impression that the larger Birdies Beds come with braces to keep them from bowing out when filled, which again, I had to buy for these. But Birdies Beds also come with shipping costs which, once again, these did not. So in the end, the additional ~$50 for these beds still doesn't bring the cost up to the base cost of an equivalent Birdies Bed. On the other hand, the panels for tall Birdies Beds are full height, while these were two short panels that are bolted together to make a tall panel. I also suspect that the metal might be slightly thicker in a Birdies Bed, so it's possible that they would be the better long-term investment, but for the immediate-term....
Post supervised by Grrl.
Getting me free admission into gaming conventions for a decade