Railroad Tie Raised Garden Bed

Just when I thought we were in full blown spring, the temperature drops to 35 degrees.  It looks like everything survived and we don't have any more cold weather on the forecast, so I believe I can officially say that it's finally spring!

The last couple weeks I've been working on building, filling, and planting a raised garden bed out of railroad ties.  As stated in a previous post, I received these railroad ties free from someone offering them on Craiglist.  The previous owner used them for a playground border.  Now I'd like to share my experiences with setting up this garden.

I picked up eight foot long railroad ties and cut two down to use on the ends with a circular saw.  I had to cut all 4 sides of the wood and then use a hand saw to finish the edge so that it was smooth.

The next step was deciding what to do with the grass.  Since this area of grass was so thick, I found some large boards to lay on the grass to kill it before putting in the soil.

I picked up a cubic yard of garden soil and shoveled about 20 cubic feet of soil into the garden.  The grass wasn't entirely dead but I did cover half of it with a fabric to see if it prevents weed and/or grass growth better than no barrier at all.

The filled garden was looking good!

My next step was planting some squash plants that my little girl and I started by seed in the seed-starting tray on the right.  We also planted some carrot seeds in rows by the popsicle stick.  I'm waiting on some bush beans to get bigger to transplant them in the open area of the garden.

Luckily I put pine straw around the seedlings before the cold front came through.  I really hope this protected the squash plants!  So what do you think of the railroad tie raised garden?


Here are some other things going on around the backyard garden:

Red potatoes, herb seed planted, and tomato seedlings.

Cleaned out the butterfly garden planted our lemon tree, and mulched around the citrus trees

Spiderworts blooming in our flower garden.

Mother bluebird leaving her house!  We are excited for our first spring in the new house!!!

Pollen is in the air... and my nose.

It's Spring!  Well not officially, Spring starts March 20th, but plants started blooming and birds are making nests.  Our bluebirds are back checking out where I moved their house.

My Eastern Redbud tree is starting to show life again and my maple tree looks very cool with all the red seeds hanging.  Does anyone know if maple tree leaves make good mulch for around the base of trees?  I usually just use pine needles.

 

I added some amaryllis and spiderworts (I think) to my flower garden.  I still need to mulch around them to keep the weeds from growing.  I've decided that this area is where I'll plant things that people give me.  There is an odd collection already in the garden including aloe, milkweed, ivy, Ox Eye Sunflower, and more that I haven't identified yet.  

This was a spur of the moment project.  I was working in the yard and got an alert on my phone that someone was giving away railroad ties.  I heard about how people make gardens out of them so I thought I'd give it a try.  These are pretty old railroad ties that have rotted some, but the garden frame ended up looking good.

Now I need to find around 20 cubic feet of garden soil to fill my new railroad tie garden.  So far I have a quote of $35 dollars for 1 cubic yard (27 cubic feet) but the soil is in Wakulla.  Does anyone know of a place in or around Tallahassee that has good quality garden soil at a decent price?

This is an area of my yard that I'm trying to plant all natives.  So far under the pine trees I've planted 3 Arrow-wood, 1 Spicebush, and 1 Crabapple that were purchased as bareroot trees at Native Nurseries.  Do you say "bareroot", bare-root", or "bare root"???  I also planted 3 'Little Gem' Southern Magnolia toward the back of my property line.

Here is a closeup of the Crabapple. None of these trees are very big but my goal is for them to fill out the area covered in pine needles and give birds, insects, and wildlife food and shelter.

Sun setting over my future native filled landscape...

The time springs forward this weekend so that means more time in the yard!!!  (if my wife lets me...)