Huerto Hellarity

Evolution of a Square Foot Garden

Starting with the eviction of the Hellarity House, the workers came in and created piles of trash in front of the house that then went in the dumpster. One of the piles had a bunch of salvageable lumber. I thought it was going into the trash but someone did end up coming by and picked the remaining pieces that I didn't take. Oops. I'll call it payment for all the nights we lost sleep because of their partying.

Most of the pieces were 2" x 2 1/2" studs, generally used for interior partition walls. If you've never seen this kind of wood, it's beautiful. It comes from old growth Douglas Fir and is usually closer to full dimensional as opposed to nominal. Here in the Bay Area I've seen houses with 2x12 joists in continuous 25-foot lengths. Magnificent.

I had to remove all nails, screws, electrical boxes, etc. from the studs. Then they were clean and ready to use.

With the cleaned studs I was able to join three pieces together with Timberlok screws to make the sides for two 3'x7' beds.

In honor of the source, I named the beds Huerto Hellarity. It looked a little too ghetto, though, so turned it around and faced the name in the other direction.

Using the Square Foot Garden method, I divided it into 21 squares and filled it with Mel's Mix.

I added an end frame with trellis netting for vine plants, or in this case tomato plants grown using the single stem technique.

This being my first attempt, I didn't quite fill all the squares. Next year I'll do a full bed and also prepare the second one with two trellises.