Starting the Raised Beds

I spent the weekend building the raised beds for the raspberries. The wood was delivered first thing on Saturday morning by the excellent Walker Timber: it looks like a huge pile, but then there's about 320m of plank, and around 100 posts/pegs.

I started with the raspberries as they -- along with the strawberries -- are the most in need of the new beds, and they're also the simplest (about 1.2m wide, and 4.3m long, simple rectangles). Because the corner posts are meant to be six foot taller than ground level, it meant digging 60cm holes for them (can't hammer the top of a three-metre post: I'm not that tall), which was actually simpler for being in clay. Once the posts were in, cutting and screwing the planks was reasonably quick, and both beds are now done.

I might order some top-soil for next (Holy) weekend, if they can deliver it, and then the raspberry beds will be done, and I can turn to the strawberries. The vegetable beds will be last, as the turf for them hasn't even been cut, though we did mark the beds out.