This is one of the six garden planters filled up now with Mel’s Mix. The mix a soil alternative – a recipe of peat moss, vermiculite, and as many different kinds of compost as you can find – created by Mel Bartholomew who wrote Square Foot Gardening. (I used mushroom, cotton burr, and barnyard composts. Later I’ll add my own compost if it makes well.)
My boxes are 4′ x 4′ x 8″ and we put them up on supports, like tables, at about my chest height. This means that I can plant, weed, and harvest without bending over double or getting up and down from hands and knees.
Filling up the boxes is a big project, but I only have to do it to this extent every couple of years.
We finished filling up the boxes late yesterday afternoon. Today we put tarps over each planter. We put a plastic bucket in the center of each planter so water won’t pool in the center, and will hopefully run off.
We know this won’t solve ALL our problems on getting ready for the spring, but we’re hoping that the tarps will last reasonably well, keeping most of the Mel’s Mix IN the planters and most of the weeds OUT.
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