Landfill To Veggies, One Boxspring At A Time

My facebook status this weekend generated some curiosity among friends and acquaintances, so I thought it might be beneficial to post details and photos of my latest project. As many of you know, I am very concerned with reducing our eco-footprint, and saving items from landfill. I'm also all about frugality, health, and making things from scratch. And, I love food. I have wanted to have my own veggie garden for the last two years, but have been stuck in ruts along the way.

Two years ago I bought a bunch of seeds, and never got around to planting them. Last year I bought seedling starter pods and had my wonderful husband till a plot of ground in our backyard for me to plant. Unfortunately my seedlings damped off and failed to thrive, and the tilled ground required more prep work than I had the energy to do (breaking up lumps, removing stones / grass / weeds). Finally this year I discovered raised bed gardening, which eliminated the tilling issues, and "lasagna gardening" which cheaply produces great nutrient-rich soil and inhibits weed growth.

This year my husband's job was to pick up a boxspring and mattress I found on Freecycle, and I also managed to score some landscaping fabric and plastic hardware netting at yard sales, to make my garden even more weed and critter proof. Here are the basic steps I took:

Step 1, rip fabric off top and bottom of boxspring. (Remove any springs...but in this case cheap boxsprings that are mere wooden slats work best.)

Step 2, choose a location with full sun, position mattress on ground with boxspring on top (slats down) to form a raised garden frame. (At this point I laid landscape fabric down around the perimeter to smother weeds and grass, and also used a staple gun and more landscape fabric to cover the somewhat ugly frame.)


Step 3, layer the following materials in this order: grass clippings / weeds / dew worms, leaf mulch / pine needles, fresh unrotted compost, wet newspapers (thick layer), rotted compost, leaf mulch, topsoil or potting soil.



Step 4, plant seeds or seedlings. (I also staked netting around the garden to discourage critters from nibbling on my freshly planted seedlings.) Watch them grow, with high yields and little or no weeds! :)


I planted 4 cherry tomato plants, 4 beefsteak tomato, 2 broccoli, 3 cauliflower, 4 celery, 4 head lettuce, and 4 mesclun greens, and needed to buy 4 bags of black earth topsoil. My total cost for the garden was $27 and change, including tax. Keep an eye out for updates on how our garden succeeds!

Comments

  1. The Happy DomesticMay 18, 2010 at 1:37 PM

    I am still on the lookout for landscaping rocks, sand or gravel to spread over the landscape fabric around the garden. Let me know if anybody has a good idea for this!

    ReplyDelete
  2. SharonMay 18, 2010 at 6:12 PM

    Sounds like you need a trip to the beach (for the sand and rocks)...it's free!

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousMay 20, 2010 at 7:20 AM

    we have an abundance of rocks at our house....we are constantly digging them up....feel free to take them off our hands :)

    tammara

    ReplyDelete

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