Wicking Beds : a step by step process of building our first large in ground wicking bed

Just started this week to build new in-ground wicking beds in the vege garden which will be covered over with shade cloth over hoop frames. the first bed measures 900mm wide by 450mm deep (perhaps will end up at 500mm which was the original plan) this bed is at the end and will be slightly longer than the others to allow for walking through and wheelbarrow access.
as this bed will be open to the elements on one side the plan is to put in sweet corn, dill, pumpkin, peas and melons. these are all companion plants to each other and the pumpkins can sprawl out over the outside as they grow and still have their root systems in the wicking beds.
Ideally there will be worm feed stations along the beds to feed the worms and they in turn will take the food deep into the soil.
what's the weather like today??   not a nice day here at all.

Summary	Sun Feb 9
	Windy
Maximum	38°C
Minimum	27°C
Chance of Rain Likely Amount	5% < 1mm
UV Index	Extreme
Frost Risk	Nil
	9am	3pm
Wind Speed Wind Direction	28km/h NE	32km/h WNW
Relative Humidity	17%	18%

check the weather for the upcoming few days


vege seed sown to date:\
Lettuce , Russian Black Kale,
both germinated and Kale potted into single cell trays.
located in poly house. punnets in icecream container with 1 inch water, then swapped over the dry container if not all water wicked up.
seems to work well especially in this heat.

So back to the wicking beds under construction. did i mention that the hole has been excavated? yes, and there is a pile of gorgeous soil ready to go in along with some composted mulch and blood and bone..

 so
the next step is to even up the bottom so it is perfectly even to avoid pooling of the water when filling , may use some of the sand to achieve this, then line the bed with impervious plastic and bring the plastic lining up the sides till approximately 250mm before folding it back on itself and then trimming off the excess. At this point there needs to be inserted a runoff outlet to avoid flooding when the skies decide to open up and send down 50mm or more of rain in 1 go. it does happen, although presently one would be forgiven if they disbelieved me.
so next job is to get the washed sand delivered.

the plastic goes in after Monday and the slotted agi pipe and upright plastic pipe fitted to each end with removable  caps installed (to keep out the gremlins and dirt ) and then the intention is to cover the slotted agi pipe with a fibrerous weed mat to stop the sand from getting into the agi pipe and restricting the flow of water as it travels the length of the bed. Sand is next and has to come up to the 250mm mark and be even the length of the bed.

the drain over flow pipe goes in now and at this stage I'm not sure exactly how I will achieve this. as the bed is the further most one and there is plenty of space I think that into the side will go  metal pipe that I can penetrate through the soil and then pass a black plastic pipe through, 25mm diameter should be enough. if it goes easily I might do a second one to be sure it doesn't flood.
As you can probably appreciate, I'm not out there today working on it.!
see you next time when I will post up some pics of where we are at with the current wicking bed. 


interested in wicking beds, here a good link
http://www.wickingbed.com/
and 
 http://maireid.com/wickingbeds.html



                                                                    

 this design was done by a student at Milkwood Permaculture  www.milkwood.net





Wednesday12 Feb  today A stage further along now, with a hidden stump having been dug out of the side of the bed,
now if I'd know that was there I'd have moved the bed in by another 40mm to avoid that extra work.
Still it came out and all is well. Skies very dull with smoke although no smell of smoke which is appreciated. temps probably less than expected 39C due to the smoke haze.

Thurs 13Feb. got the spirit level out to see how the bottom was and not too bad at all. A bit to scrape out then it's go for the wheel barrow and get some sand to put down under the plastic sheeting.
Have the plastic sheeting and the slotted agi pipe and the plastic bends to fit onto the agi pipe and support the uprights which the water will be fed into.
the days are still pretty hot but by working early in the morning and then later in the evening  I have been able to get the heavy shovel work done and been back in the cool fairly easily.

Saturday, the sand comes this afternoon. shovel and barrowload after barrowload because it's looking like rain. I really wanted to catch the rain and use it in the wicking bed so the pressure is on.
and then it rained!! 9mm for the day.

Sunday 16th Feb,
another load of sand and this time less pressure to get it in before the rain came. Actually the sand was easier to smooth along the area and the water had made the previous load settle so i could walk along on it to level the sand using the back of an old kitchen broom. Once the sand was in and levelled off the water level was about 1mm over the sand. the fabric that i used then to separate the sand and the growing medium ie the compost and garden soil is a piece of frost protection blanket.
that should keep the sand clean. i then placed a length of pipe into the side of the bed just below the level of the black plastic and pushed it through the soil creating a hole that I could then pass a length of pipe through to avoid  flooding the bed when it rains.

 I have included a worm feeding station. which after wracking my brains for a suitable container that i could access easily I came up with the idea of using a small kitchen compost bin which has a hinged lid. Hubby drilled holes with a hole cutting saw, holes are about 3.5 cm diameter, and one on the bottom. the worm food goes in and the worms enter and leave with the food to take it into the surrounding areas. 

.

 I added worms from my old above ground wicking beds (apple crates)and  have transplanted self sown silverbeet seedlings from the old wicking bed and added some of the worm castings from there as well.  the beds are covered with damp cardboard to give the worms time to dig down into moist soil.. One area of the bed has a section with sandy loam for carrots and have just sown 2 rows of carrot seed. added sweetcorn seedlings ,a punnet of  beetroot seedlings and dill.

Wednesday19th Feb: everything is settling in nicely and the day has been cooler with just a couple of showers around 4pm.

I'll wait a week and then start on excavating the next bed.

Thu Feb 20 Fri Feb 21 Sat Feb 22 Sun Feb 23 Mon Feb 24 Tue Feb 25 Wed Feb 26 Mostly sunny Mostly sunny Sunny Sunny Sunny Mostly sunny Mostly sunny Maximum 22°C 22°C 28°C 31°C 32°C 31°C 26°C Minimum 10°C 8°C 10°C 12°C 14°C 15°C 11°C Chance of Rain Likely Amount 10% < 1mm 5% < 1mm 5% < 1mm 5% < 1mm 5% < 1mm 10% < 1mm 40% 1-5mm

Phase 2:

Tuesday 25th Feb.2014

I think I can seriously start to consider the next wicking bed.
	Surprisingly there were no muscles damaged during the construction of the first wicking bed.
		Wicking Bed  #2 will be in a new blog .