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Duncan said:
View attachment 57009
Dawn and I knocked together the frame for a 4' X 12' X 2' raised bed today. Had to do it in the garage, since it didn't even get up to freezing. You can see the 12' corrugated aluminum on the left. We have three pieces, one each for the sides; we'll have to cut two 44" pieces for the end.

It took us about four hours to put together, but it's our first attempt. Next week we'll get the materials for three more. Anyway, tomorrow we're going to cut the aluminum and screw it into the inside of the frame. That should take another 2-3 hours.

We're going to use the "hügelkultur" approach, and we've been scrounging up branches, sticks, twigs, etc., enough to fill the thing up halfway. Then one neighbor is going to bring his truck around with about a cubic yard of fill dirt, and I'm off with another guy to take his tractor with a front loader and get some two-year-old horse manure. Hopefully we'll have them (and maybe another four) sitting in the garden, full of growing media, by the end of February.

Then it's on to the greenhouse!
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Looks nice Duncan

I would like to read an update on how it works out.

Quick thought
Once filled and wet there may be considerable pressure on the sides pushing the center of the long sides outward. Maybe some all-thread between the inner uprights to keep the long sides from flexing out.

I may end up paying you a compliment by imitating your boxes. Many of mine have roted out and need replacement.

Ben
 
Amish Heart said:
Sorry your brother is feeling bad, Ben. Our youngest is not feeling well, had her second Pfizer yesterday. Lucky she is off work this weekend.
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He survived in a house with others with Covid with getting it himself. But the vaccine did affect him.

Talk about the cure being worse than...

Ben
 
Neb said:
Looks nice Duncan

I would like to read an update on how it works out.

Quick thought
Once filled and wet there may be considerable pressure on the sides pushing the center of the long sides outward. Maybe some all-thread between the inner uprights to keep the long sides from flexing out.
Click to expand...

Good point, Ben. I decided to put two vertical reinforcements on each side rather than one, to help minimize bowing. But I think a better idea would be to screw in another four foot 2 X 4 transversely across the bottom and another at the top. I'm also going to put in some sockets made from PVC end caps to make a "hoop house" for later screening or clear plastic to be used.

Neb said:
I may end up paying you a compliment by imitating your boxes. Many of mine have roted out and need replacement.

Ben
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Great! the only suggestion I have for you (since I've seen your work and you're a lot better at such stuff than I) would to use pressure-treated 2 X 4s to keep them from rotting.
Dunc
 
@Aerindel I'm sorry about your shed. Trees can do so much damage! Shed reminds me of one I have in the front of my yard. It almost got taken out in a hurricane but it's flanked by two trees that saved it from another falling tree. I hope you can salvage it.

@snappy1 I hear you on the state of the country being distracting and having trouble with dieting. I really need to exercise more but I still don't have much energy.

@UrbanHunter I hope your wife will start to get well soon.

@AmishHeart Hopefully the big shower will work out in the long run and that things will look better when it's all finished. Hope the turkey turns out good.

@pideaux Jim, I hope your wife is still feeling OK. I can understand the not wanting to go out for breakfast. Going out in public has always been exhausting for me. Even before the pandemic I liked to limit my trips.

@sonya123 I have the lack of motivation problem a lot so I know how you feel. Hope you can find some motivation during the next week. LOL about the scale from China. I used to have a Chinese alarm clock that would speak in both English and Mandarin. In English it would say "Moooooo. WAke up. No sleep you life away" (not "your life" "you life").

@moBookworm stay safe with those winter storms. Ham, potato, and corn chowder sounds very good.

@bamadeb48 I hope the test comes back negative. Potato soup is great! Before I started making my bastardized version of shepherd's pie, my mom wanted me to make potato soup a lot.

@ben Looking good! I love that you post pics of the progress. Glad you were able to fix the crack in the tub. I hope your brother will get feeling better soon. Feeling sick after vaccines can suck, but having the milder symptoms is better than the real thing. Reminds me I need to refresh some of my vaccines.

@Duncan also looking good! It will be great when you finally have your raised garden. I think my uncle uses rectangular hay bails to raise the garden at his assisted living facility. He has a little club called The Funny Farm where they grow stuff. He loves to grow veggies and flowers that attract butterflies.

Today I had planned to stay home but Mom woke me up before noon and insisted I go to the post office to get mail. Got home, walked in to my room just in time to see my monitor saying it had no signal from the video card. Looked at my computer and a cat had sprayed the side and it had gone through the vents and on to my video card. I turned the computer off, unplugged it, opened it up, and started cleaning. Waited awhile for it to dry. Booted it back up. No video signal. I asked my brother if I could use his computer & messaged our friend to tell him what was up. He said to bring it over and he could see if he could fix it. Pulled the old card out & he took my brother's old video card that he'd refurbished (but not tested yet) to see if it would work. It did. Another friend was there cleaning up my old video card. He wanted to know if I wanted to trade it for another card if he could get it working. I told him he could have it. He was doing a good job cleaning it and if he can get it to work, he deserves to keep it. Apparently 70% alcohol is safe to clean with if you don't oversaturate. Friend got new drivers and software installed for my new card. It's an upgrade to my old one-- if it keeps running. I had been looking at comparable video cards & they were all out of stock and the only ones in stock were about $600.

Went to the grocery store after, grabbed some food, got home, hooked up computer, cooked shepherd's pie, and am now resting. Oh, also we sealed up the side vents (which didn't have fans) so cats can't spray there anymore.
 
Duncan said:
Great! the only suggestion I have for you (since I've seen your work and you're a lot better at such stuff than I) would to use pressure-treated 2 X 4s to keep them from rotting.
Dunc
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Pressure treated wood and growing food don't mix.
 
We ran to Costco. Not a lot of people and no runs on anything here. We did drop about $700 to add more milk and meat to the stores. I also grabbed extra vitamins and supplements too. The joint supplement K takes is really helping my leg so I grabbed 3 more bottles. I also got some collagen powder to help with joints. I add it to my coffee since I use cream/milk. I figure I should start while I'm young to help my joints. ;) Just a normal Costco run with extra milk and meat for the most part.

K vacuum sealed most of the meat but we had to stop to make dinner. I had to move things around the meat freezer just to make sure everything fit. I moved the last of the frozen veggies to the other freezer and that about did it.

I am ready for a nap and we haven't had dinner yet!
 
Aerindel said:
Pressure treated wood and growing food don't mix.
Click to expand...

In this design, the only thing that's touching the plant bed soil is corrugated aluminum.

Here's some information about pressure-treated wood (the modern formulations, anyway) and raised beds.

Dr. Scott Leavengood, Associate Professor College of Forestry at Oregon State University and Director of the Oregon Wood Innovation Center authored an article for the OSU Extension Service, titled “Raised bed lumber, pressure treated safe?” In this article, Leavengood gives his opinion that the consensus among researchers is that the low levels of chemicals in preservative treated wood that leach out of the wood into the soil are likely to be taken up by the plants only in very small amounts. There has been no evidence to suggest that the level of the chemicals is significant enough to be of concern for human health.​
​
In a 2014 study, wood research scientists Love, Gardner and Morrell at Oregon State University found that in growing radishes, carrots and potatoes in a copper azole treated Douglas-fir planter, the copper levels were not higher in roots or tubers of radishes, carrots or potatoes compared to beds constructed from untreated wood. They also state that when people are concerned about the migration of wood preservatives, they can use polyethylene (plastic) to line the inside of the planter. Their scientific results indicate that although plastic lining is “not entirely necessary”, it can be used if there are safety concerns. The use of a plastic barrier will also extend the life of the preserved wood and help keep the raised bed garden soil within the bed area. For proper drainage, the plastic material should not be used underneath the raised bed garden.​
​
Safe practices for working with treated wood recommend treated wood not be used where it may come into direct or indirect contact with drinking water or a component of food, animal feed or beehives. The USDA prohibits treated lumber for soil contact use in their certified National Organic Program published in 2011. The updated draft dated September 5, 2018 states that CA and ACQ are not currently allowed because they are not included on the National List of allowed synthetic materials (7 CFR part 205, page 425).​
​
Viance recommends for those who have concerns to line the interior walls only with heavy plastic sheeting. There have been no justified claims that today’s treated lumber causes any negative effects from leaching into the soil.​
​
Now all those quotes are taken from the Viance P.R., so you should be able to figure out that there's a little agenda, right? Anyway, though, most of the gardening books, as well as industry flacks, say that the modern copper-based preservatives aren't going to cause anyone any problems.

The guy who had the house before me had his garden beds laid out with railroad ties. Railroad ties! Do you have any idea of what crap they used to preserve those ties? Back before there was any government oversite against making and selling that stuff? Crude oil tars was the very minimum, and people have been putting in garden beds with ties since my grandpa's time. And so far, I haven't seen any lawsuits!
Duncan drink buddy
 
Drove up the country and visited a new Amish store (to us I just heard about it). Nice store, well stocked with great products. We picked up some amish roll butter, big bag of kidney beans, and a bunch of other stuff. Also got a couple sandwiches from their deli. Wife got ham and provalone, I had roast beast and swiss with horseradish. It was blowing snow and WINDY when we walked out. Loaded up the truck, got in and ate our sandwiches there in the parking lot. They were so good I threatened to go back in and get a couple to take home. We both mentioned another road trip soon to get more.
Made a couple other stops on the way home, enjoyed seeing the mountains all around that were snow covered.
 
I am sitting here drinking tea, it is miserably cold out and supposed to get worse tonight and tomorrow, wind chill close to zero. Keep in mind we are in SW Virginia, NOT Maine or North Dakota...
So animals stay in , I feel really bad for the neighbor's sheep that don't have a shelter. I hope our spring doesn't freeze that would be very very bad, whole neighborhood without water. We have some stored in the house but not enough to water all the animals for days. This hasn't happened before but it isn't usually that cold for that long. We have had the lines to the barn freeze .
Oh and it's still snowing also.
Glad we did the shopping a few days ago.
 
I had that same sandwich as you last week, Bacpacker. Mine had thousand island dressing on it. Very yummy.
There is a gun show in town today, and never have been to one in this state, so hopefully husband feels up to going. Going to my favorite cousin's house for family Sunday dinner. She said meatloaf and mashed potatoes are the menu tonight and I'm supposed to bring brownies.
 
Yesterday I took the oven door apart, replaced some seals, removed some rust, cleaned all the glass, repainted the exterior, and installed a new handle. Today, I will gently heat it up to make sure the paint is set.

This morning we did church, good lesson.

Today we are making bread, I just ground 5 pounds of wheat to flour. The wife has spend a long time finding/making a recipe that I/we like, but we have been without a kitchen since may and now the question is, why did we make 2 variations of the recipe (different total volumes). Sometimes documentation of what we are doing a why can be a big help (Old people minds are a dangerous thing).
 
Aerindel said:
Pressure treated wood and growing food don't mix.
Click to expand...

On all my raised beds I used pressure treated wood, they have held up well for a decade. I lined this inside of the bed with interlocking layers of 6 mil black plastic. The plastic goes from the top of the raised bed side to center of the hole under the raised bed there is a small gap to allow for drainage. At every location there are at least 3 layers of plastic between the poison wood and the food growing soil, No 2 joints align and the wood side layer extends 1 foot above the edge of the wood (stapled in place) then it is folded down over the other layers It is stapled about 1" from the top of the wood and again at the bottom of the flap. The soil only comes up to within 6" of the top of the wood frame, this way my plants can grow inside the beds with the tops closed. The water never touches the wood.....
 
Bacpacker said:
Goin to my moms today for our Christmas get together. Sis, VIL, niece and her fiance will be there with mom, dad, and us.
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Sounds great, been over a year since we had or did in person visits.Phone and facetube,pictures aren't the same.
Daughter had all four little grandkids this morning all were really reved up.:eyeballs: . But thats a blessing thank goodness aol are well.
I pretty much realize we will never be close to 9 little ones in Texas,or the oldest ones in Ga..I do get pictures.
 
UrbanHunter said:
Hey Jim @phideaux, I hope your wife gets to feeling better soon. It's no fun when the spouse is down. We will keep you in our prayers.

Urban
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Thanks.
A broken vertebrae is VERY painful.
I hate seeing her in pain.
And, there's nothing I can do.

The pain meds only take it down for a short time.
I'm hoping they can get something done soon.

Jim
 
Duncan said:
Good point, Ben. I decided to put two vertical reinforcements on each side rather than one, to help minimize bowing. But I think a better idea would be to screw in another four foot 2 X 4 transversely across the bottom and another at the top. I'm also going to put in some sockets made from PVC end caps to make a "hoop house" for later screening or clear plastic to be used.


Great! the only suggestion I have for you (since I've seen your work and you're a lot better at such stuff than I) would to use pressure-treated 2 X 4s to keep them from rotting.
Dunc
Click to expand...

Jess on Roots and Ruefuge on YouTube uses beds built like that and they seem to hold up well.
 
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