Aerie Planting Bed Days 1 and 2

I’m into Day 3 of the Planting Bed project here at the Aerie.

Day 1 was spent prepping the area for the first course of landscape timbers. Trying to get a nice level surface when there are stones of every size (I would say shape too but they are all flat) was not easy. When I got as close to level as humanly possible, I resorted to the use of pea gravel placed in a trench. That allowed me to get the bubble in the center of the two lines instead of having its nose on one.



By the end of Day 1 I pretty much had the trenches cut for the side walls and a flat surface on which to place the timbers on the back wall. I cheated a little on the side walls by using four-foot long pieces for the bottom courses. That way, I didn’t have to cut into the embankment quite so far.

Here’s a view of the placement:



It's just off the lawn and down the slope. I needed to position it in such a way that it didn't interfere with the over head power line or prevent access to the power pole upon which a transformer sits. As it is now, the power company should have no difficulty pulling a truck with a cherry picker over the lawn and to the power pole.

The sun shines on this area from around 9:30 AM until roughly 4-5 PM. That should be sufficient for beans, tomatoes and other vegetables we plan to put in next year.

Day 2 went a little more smoothly. Having already managed a flat and level surface for the back wall to rest upon, I was able to start actually building the walls.
The bottom of the back wall was merely two eight-foot timbers. The first two rows of both sides were four-foot pieces cut on the chop saw. The second row of the long wall was built of an eight-footer in the middle so it bridged the joint below and two four-footers on the end. Two spikes went into each side of the eight-footer and three into each four-footer. The following rear courses were built using two eight-footers.





By staggering the corners, I created an overlap into which I could drive a 6” spike to tie the side walls into the rear wall.



On the top row of this photo, there is a spike in the corner, another about 9" to the left and a third in the side wall timber about 6" from the end. Other spikes were driven into each timber depending upon its length but no fewer than three spikes were used on each.