A Georgia Raised Garden: Loading the Boxes

SteveAndrea Bourne
by SteveAndrea Bourne
Andrea and I had run out of room on our terrace with our potted garden, so we decided to go all in with a raised garden. See our other post for the construction of the boxes and arbors. When it came time to plan, we had to line the boxes with plastic to prevent chemicals from the pressure treated wood from getting into the soil. We covered the bottom with felt to act as a weed barrier.
This garden is going to take about 10 yards of soil mixture to fill. That's 20,000 lbs! 120 bags of garden soil from Lowes! 50 bags of perlite! And a bunch of compost that we will generate over time.
Since we are using pressure treated wood, we had to line the boxes with 6 mil plastic to prevent the chemicals from getting to the soil. Note, we wouldn't have to do this if we had used cedar or some other naturally moisture resistant wood. The felt paper in the bottom of the box acts as a weed barrier.
The felt paper on the bottom acts as a weed barrier.
Andrea is getting started!
Andrea is getting started. We first lay down a layer of Perlite, and then a garden soil mix from Lowes. We'll add compost to this over time.
SteveAndrea Bourne
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
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Frequently asked questions
Have a question about this project?
  1 question
  • Elaine Elaine on Sep 05, 2018

    Why did you choose to buy bags instead of a truckload of compost or soil?


    And why didn’t you mix the perlite with the soil? I’m confused...


    your link isn’t working btw

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  • SteveAndrea Bourne SteveAndrea Bourne on Sep 05, 2018

    Hi,


    Thank you for the question. Bags were a bulk order and guaranteed an integrity of consistency beyond compost or soil. We did mix the Perlite in, particularly toward the base for drainage purposes. The only compost we added later was our own from the garden so we would know what was in it and to prevent unknown contaminates.


    Andrea

  • Barbara Burgess Barbara Burgess on May 11, 2019

    Love this idea. I wish we could do it but it is way too much work for us old folks!..

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