Filling the Garden Beds

My body may ache until my next birthday, and the blister on my right hand may never heal. But our garden beds are filled and ready for plants!

One of the reasons I didn’t pursue my garden sooner was the fear that filling raised beds was going to be very expensive.

And if you’re using bagged elements from a big box hardware store, it probably will put a pinch on the wallet.

Enter the joy of soil and compost in bulk.

I have researched quite a bit about the mixture to use in my raised bed (Remember: serial overthinker, here). Thankfully, the University of Florida provides such incredible resources for Florida gardeners through their Gardening Solutions site. We decided to do a 50/50 mix of com post and top soil, based on recommendations from their blog. In the future, we’ll only have to top off beds with additional compost as the organic matter breaks down.

One of the big compost names in Florida is Black Kow. A bag of Black Kow from the store runs about $6 a bag. However, being that we are so close to their operation, we were able to get two yards of Black Kow for $100 from their partner, Summerfield Harvest. Bonnie and the rest of her team were wonderful. We’ll definitely be ordering from them in the future to refresh our beds.

In terms of top soil, we didn’t want to use soil from our property to try to control soil-embedded pests, like nematodes. Instead, we purchased top soil from a local landscape supplier. It was dark and crumbly, exactly the opposite of our sandy Florida soil. One of the forklift operators at the facility said he took it home to grow tomatoes in, and they’re doing great. That was all the convincing this tomato-lover needed!

Our garden entryway was just a hair too narrow to fit our wheelbarrow through, so things were a little complicated there for awhile as I figured out how I was going to lug the soil around. Until I shoveled down my compost pile, which was blocking a gate panel, I had to forcefully shove the wheelbarrow through the entrance.

Did the massive blister on my hand come from that or shoveling? The world may never know.Eventually, I was able to remove one of our fence panels to wheel directly into the garden from the driveway.

During one of the many trips, I realized the pin holding one of the wheels on came off. Later, I lost the wheel entirely. I even noticed the metal frame separating as well. It was a whole thing. Honestly, if someone had been filming me, it probably would’ve ended up on America’s Funniest Home Videos.

To round out the week, I’ll be planting out everything while my husband finishes the water line. I can’t wait to share more with you all as my little cottage garden grows!