For our urban garden, we decided that we would use Will’s back yard. He was the only one with a yard and had already once planted there. We first started to move the plots about three feet towards his house so that they would receive more sunlight. Three beds were just extended, which we double-dug. This is the process of digging as deep as your bed should be then forking or breaking up the ground under where you dug. We took the soil that we dug up, removed the top layer of grass and weeds and discarded the rocks as well as any grubs we found. We then broke up the soil and used it to refill the holes. The other parts of the beds that we did not have to move, we weeded and broke up the top layer of soil.
For the last bed, we will completely be starting new. Unlike what was previously there, this will be a raised bed. We will be using parts of a discarded fence that Will found to recycle. We will make the sides of the bed from this wood, which was untreated. This will help keep any unwanted chemicals from leaching into our clean garden. This bed will also have to be double-dug, and since it is a raised bed it should allow for the longer rooting plants to grow more easily.
In all of these beds, we will be adding our compost that has been composting in a bin made from an old garbage can and a separate compost pile. The compost pile is made from all green compost and is working fine. However, the garbage can, which is more brown compost, is not going as well as we had planned. We are still trying different ways to make it work. Right now we believe that it is getting too much air, which is keeping it from getting hot enough to break down all the materials. Even though this was only an experiment, we are not willing to give up on it yet.
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