Our back yard is 60' wide and about 50' deep. We decided that a 24'x4' bed, divided into three 8' sections would suit us best. The land where we live used to be cabbage, cucumber and potato farms, so the ground is really good for growing, though slightly acidic. We started by marking out where we wanted the vegetable garden to be. I decided to dig out the boarder along the grass with a flat shovel to keep a clean edge and avoid tearing up the good grass.
Steve and I drove to Home Depot and rented the biggest tiller they had, an 8 HP, 242cc, 270 lb, Honda Rear-Tine tiller, which just fit int he back of our Jeep Cherokee (with the back door open). Though we tied it in with rope, the Home Depot guy put the tiller in neutral before turning it off, and so as we drove away the thing decided it wanted to stay behind and almost rolled out the back. Steve quickly grabbed it and after putting it in gear, we were homeward bound.
Steve and I fought over, that is, took turns with the tiller and dug as deep as we could along the side fence where I wanted our vegetable garden to be. Since we had the tiller for 24 hours, I decided we may as well till along the the entire back fence and the far corner of our yard which usually grows into a tangle of unkept weeds over the summer. Our eventual goal is to make the corner a nice sitting area, with butterfly bushes and flower, and to plant fruit trees along the back fence, but for now we'll settle just tilled.
The only snag we hit (literally) was a large buried root from an old tree that had come down years before. It took Steve and I about an hour with a hatchet and a couple saws to get the 12" diameter beast out. It nearly broke us, but in the end we prevailed.
With the 24 hour rental up, I took the tiller back to Home Depot on Sunday and shed a few tears. That was one of the coolest machines I had ever used. It was so easy to use and required no effort to turn the ground. Maybe I'll buy one if I get a couple grand to spare.
While we weren't making a raised bed, I did want a border around the garden, to prevent anyone from accidentally driving a battery powered Jeep into garden. I picked up a bunch of cedar 4x4's along with L brackets, deck screws and a dozen 6" nails. While pressure treated wood is much cheaper and I know that it isn't treated with arsenic anymore, I just felt cedar was the better way to go. It looks better and there is that piece of mind that it is untreated.
I started to lay out the pieces to help decide how I was going to frame in the beds but soon decided to call it quits for the weekend. We had done a lot of work and I was really pleased with the results. The border would have to wait for another weekend.
A big thanks to Steve for all his help.
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