Low-Cost Raised Beds...

   Buenos Morning, Internet.
             I've found it's generally more productive to set up new growing beds over the fall and winter for spring plantings.  For one thing, it allows any soil amendments to filter their way into the dirt, and the alternating freeze & thaw seems to help open up the soil - a great way to utilize natural cycles to minimize human labor.  For another thing, it helps to keep me focused on my production goals through the winter, with the added benefit of keeping the winter blues at bay.

     So starting at the end of November I began prepping the three beds in the front yard that will be devoted entirely to annual vegetable production.  A huge part of low-cost micro-farming is reclaiming or sourcing materials locally.  That this coincides with my (a)political, economic & social belief systems is a nice bonus.  It took about 2 months of working at it every other weekend for a few hours or so, not including gathering materials (cardboard, newspapers, salvaging bricks from the house they tore down up the street) in advance.  My only monetary cost was masonry sand from a local supply company and wood chips from the county vegetative waste recovery site (i tried to get some free chips from a tree service, but had heard nothing back by the time i was ready to use them).
   The sand serves two purposes, it helped to level out the brick borders and will gradually work down into the soil.  While we are blessed at this house with really nice topsoil, living where we live i can come quite close to certain that there's a clay hardpan below it somewhere.  I'm hoping that as the worms come up to get at the compost beneath the woodchip mulch, they'll help work the sand i sprinkled underneath all of it throughout their earthy worm heaven. 
  My planting style for annual vegetables is an amalgam of techniques I've picked up over the years, including Mel Batholomew's square foot spacing technique (short video) & Paul Gauchi's (or God's, if you prefer) Back to Eden no-till, heavy mulch process (long film, worth a watch).

• Thanks to an influential elementary school teacher for pointing the way Back to Eden, you can see what he's up to @ http://cedar-ridge-farm.blogspot.com/. 

 So, because I can't ever follow rules exactly, I've made my 3 4ftx12ft beds for the cost of 2 truckloads of sand (about $35) and one truckload of mulch ($15).  $50 for the amount of food we'll be able to grow doesn't seem too bad.  Anyhoo, on to step-by-step pictures:

First, I marked the beds with bamboo stakes & twine. Next I removed (&saved for compost) sod from the paths.

 Blocking the grasses with cardboard. After I did the first bed I realized i needed to level the bricks with sand.

So I got some and started laying partly-finished compost (I'd have used totally finished compost, but partly finished was what I had) on top of the cardboard.

A sprinkle of sand in the bed.

More compost

Starting the last bed. I ran out of compost at my house, other than some horse manure i need to compost to perform a bioassay test on (more on that later), so I had to truck some in from me madre's.

The last step was adding 3-6inches of woodchips to the bed, I think I averaged about 4in, then I spread a thin layer of the mulch over the sand surrounding and between the beds.

That's fifty bones, if you'll recall a previous post, for growing space to accomodate:

• 12 cucumbers
• a plethora of mustard greens
• 4 squash plants
• 6 broccoli
• 48 pole beans
• 92 bush beans
• 46 soybean plants
• 27 leeks
• 12 celery
• 96 storage onions
• 48 sweet onions
• 108 scallions
• 24 garlic bulbs
• 12 tomatoes
• 12 pepper plants
• 54 shell peas
• 54 snap peas

Not a bad deal.