Filling Up the Boxes

More of the same today. 

I filled the planters by the day's end, which was the big goal. And the saving grace is this: this was a one-time operation. Now that all this growing medium is up on the roof, I can reuse it for years, simply adding compost, fertilizer, and the occasional bag of peat moss as needed. Even if the planter rots away, it will be easy enough to shovel the medium into something else.

At the beginning of the day, I decided to put some "weep holes" in the corn planter so that if a torrential rain comes, I won't have to worry about it filling up with water and getting too heavy (or having my soil float out of it).

Hardware cloth and some window screening will allow water out but keep soil in. 

Weep holes from the outside. 

I made a simple screed out of scrap lumber so I'd know when the soil was at the 8" depth I want.

The screed at one end. 

The box is about halfway full. 

Adding in lime and fertilizer.

Adding charcoal.

My brother told me that some planters he'd made a few years ago had exploded outward from the weight of their soil. I took his advice and reinforced mine with some L-brackets I had lying around. 

Reinforcements! 

Filled!

It's a good idea to have a visual sense of your squares in Square Foot Gardening, so you can space your plants properly. You can buy pre-made grids, or just tie some string to nails around the edge. I used a bunch of scrap quarter-round that was in the basement, along with some decorative trim I had left over from shelves I built long ago. 

The finished corn planter. 

Corn planter plus two tomato planters.