The Red River Zoo in Fargo, ND is a nice one to visit if you get the chance. I used to enjoy stopping in on bicycle rides or trips to Costco when I lived around there. One thing that caught my attention at the Red River Zoo was a lovely bench with raised beds. It was 12 foot by six foot, with the back half being a full raised bed, and the front half split into a bench between two raised beds. I wanted to make one, so I took a few pictures and carefully planned out required materials. That was 4-5 years ago.
I purchased 12 foot boards to build the bench in my yard once I returned to living full time in St Louis, MO. They sat in our garage for over a year as I never got around to building it.
We moved to a new home early 2022. I brought the boards with us. Still didn’t build the bench. Then, after losing my job, I decided that it would be good to get out the shovels, hammers and power tools, and use those boards to build a terrace on the 8 foot hill in our back yard. That was just about one year ago this week. With support and encouragement from Mrs greenandblue, it grew into three terraces, a deck, two sets of stairs and drip irrigation. Throw in a few low tunnels and we’re ready to garden this year. Visiting local farms and nurseries helped me to plan. See and read about it all in the rest of this diary.
First, here is a summer day shot from the top of our hill with the large pin oak spreading it’s branches across the yard. You can also see some of the honeysuckle taking over our neighborhood, but that is a different story.
There is more sun on the hill than other places in our yard, so terraces would be good there. Plus, I had enough materials to get started and needed something to do. So, why not build a terrace with boards we had for years? One terrace led to more trips to the home improvement store, and, finally, three terraces up the hill, which need stairs if we really want to make them fully useful. I didn’t want to build a staircase frame above the hill slope, so we went with 4X6 ties cut into 4 foot sections built into the slope. Each step has 4 ties, 4 two foot rebars holding them into the ground and 4 six inch spikes nailing ties together. Each is put in after digging out a flat step and adding a layer of minus gravel that compacts really well.
Since we were putting in steps, why not make one big one (12’ X 4’) and call it a deck. So we added the deck by digging a flat area, covering it with minus gravel spacing out 4X6 inch ties, rebarring then into the ground, and screwing 5/4 inch deck board onto that. Walls and small steps were added to the deck with 2X4’s and deck planks. An eight foot raised bed was added above the deck. On the other side of the terraces, another small set of stone and wood steps was added using stone and wood we had left over from this and other projects. We also added stones that were previously installed, covered over by dirt and grass, and uncovered as we dug for the new terraces.
The terrace walls are 5/4 inch deck planks that are held in place by screwing them to 2 foot tall and 1 foot deep 2X4 triangles holding 2 foot rebar hammered into the ground. Additionally, the front of terrace walls are buttressed by 3 foot stakes hammered into the ground for over a foot.
During our dry growing season last year, we regularly watered our garden manually by turning on the faucet, pulling the hose around, and spraying water somewhat indiscriminately for a half hour or more. I knew we wanted to save water and would like to save some time. As we talked about it at home, I also asked local growers when I got the chance what they did to water plants.
In my area, the proprietors of Herman’s Farm kindly showed me and Busta their high tunnel and irrigation systems and gave us a small sample of their irrigation tubing. I didn’t use the same product, but it useful for planning, and in later conversations with the kind people at MPR Supply, it helped us to plan out a Rainbird drip irrigation solution for my property.
Our newly installed irrigation system starts with a Y at the spigot separating a hose from a 1 inch diameter black poly tubing irrigation line. The irrigation line runs to 3 tees, one for each terrace, with each terrace on a separate valve and half inch line. The tubing was unwieldy to unroll, but is holding down with landscape staples. Once the garden is growing, we can connect emitters, ¼ inch tubing and stakes for each plant or watering zone.
Overall, irrigation has been fairly easy and cheap to get started. The tube tools are very helpful, and cheap. We’ll see how the plastic holds up. It doesn’t seem worthwhile unless we get multiple years out of the material.
The final material to cover here are the low tunnels we want in order to protect against frost early and late in the year, as well as, to possibly protect against insect pests, and to definitely protect against chicken marauders released from their already spacious chicken yard by the soft author. How could I keep chickens penned up when they are so happy scratching around the yard? Rather than fence them in, I’m trying to fence in my greens. We’ll see how that works.
Local growers once again very kindly talked to me in some detail about how they build tunnels. Folks at Hartke Nursery, for one, engaged in several conversations with me. One of their solutions is to bend 10 foot PVC pipe into 7 foot wide and 2.5 foot tall hoops that they secure together and cover with heavy duty plastic that is used for multiple years.
I thought for a while. What I want is portable tunnels. I made plans to build 5 foot by 5 foot tunnels out of PVC, bamboo and plastic. I spent upwards of a hundred dollars on materials, and 2 days binding bamboo sticks together. Then I decided to look around some more. What do you know? There are pre-made tunnels. All you have to do is open them like an accordion and push stakes into the ground.
I found one local supplier at the OK Hatchery Feed and Garden Store. Their stock was limited, so I bought one from them and also ordered three more online. The local store was cheaper, at under $30, but all were under $50. That is probably less than the material for my PVC, bamboo and plastic design, and saves many hours of labor. This a great place for me to say that, honey, that one tunnel I asked for turned into four. But, look how easy they are to use.
So, that is where we are in our garden. We are ready to grow and would love any suggestions for our terraces and tunnels, starting with spring. Since construction was spaced out over a year, and purchase of materials over several years, it is difficult for me to estimate a final cost. I can give estimates in comments, if there is interest. Finally, I combined a number of photos in order to save space. I can provide individual images with more detailed descriptions in the comments if there is interest.