Wattle and lasagna composting

Goal - have raised beds. Price - not a whole lot, if any. Solution - alder branches, cut during the clearing of some of our property, a pile of manure sourced locally over the summer, bags of fallen leaves, provided by friends and unsuspecting people throughout Quispamsis, NB. The alder branches can be used for wattle weaving, where branches are woven together to create fences, raised beds, erosion control structures, etc.

This is what it looks like when you know what you're doing

We had a whole pile of alders lined up. Josh cleared some during the summer, and made me a whole pile of straight, long, medium-width branches of alders.

A restored Templars' monastery. Can I live there?

We also had piles of manure, and during November, we collected quite a few bags of raked leaves from the unsuspecting dwellers of Quispamsis, NB. In addition, we had a few bags collected and/or dropped off by friends (thank you, everyone!). There was also an abundance of untreated, brown cardboard from moving boxes, and some kitchen scraps made by us and also donated by relatives. To put it all together, we used the lasagna bed approach, also called sheet mulching (here and here).

We started off by putting in the stakes for the raised bed (made out of straight-ish, thick pieces of alder).

In the middle, we placed a layer of cardboard. Any small branches were chopped off and plopped in the middle of the bed as well. With time, they will form a tiny hugel bed (hugel who?? Hugelkultur is German for "mound culture", the art of burying a mix of wood and planting on top of the mound; this creates a self-watering, self-fertilizing planting bed). 

Then we started placing the pieces of wattle along the border of the bed, weaving it around the stakes. Not a thing of beauty, for sure, but it should work, which is all we're after at this point. Maybe generation 2.0 will be a more aesthetically pleasing version.

From left to right: 1) first couple of rows of wattle, 2) filled a couple of layers of compost, manure, and fallen leaves, and 3) side view of the layers within the bed. The green growth on top of the manure pile was added as "green manure" to the bed.

Man, worms loved that manure pile.

Once the bed is full, we placed the last layer of leaves and covered with some cardboard, so that the leaves don't blow away. And repeat. Since then, we have made another two beds, just off the side of the first two. Those were left empty and have been acting as our compost pile over the winter - we place bucketfuls of compost, cover with leaves, and walk away. In the spring, we'll be able to plant hungry vegetables, like squashes, straight into these compost beds. The more gently creatures, like tomatoes, can go into the manure-leaves beds and be happy. Cost - $free.99 for all components, help from friends - priceless, product - hopefully a happy garden :-) Thanks for everyone who has helped out!