Raised vegetable bed

[Frances]

Not raised very high yet, but its great fun to do. Like a puzzle or a giant 3D mosaic. The wall is going to be 50 cm high and built along the principles of a drystone wall, but with lots of mortar to help it stay up.

Next to it you can see what used to be our buttercup patch. Well, there were some other plants there once, tomatoes, sprouts, that kind of thing, but they didn't really stand a chance. It turns out that buttercups are completely and entirely unedible. Not the flowers, not the leaves, not the roots, nada... so they had to come out. Maybe I'll go for dandelions this year.

Question: should you keep this kind of mortar damp for a week too? And if so, how do you do it? I mean, if someone's building a brick house, they can hardly wrap it up in wet sacking, can they?

[egalecki]

Re: Raised vegetable bed

I like it!

I don't think you have to keep it wet for a week. You're right, they don't do that with regular brick. Of course, most reg. brick nowadays doesn't support any weight but its own, either...

[Modthyrth]

Re: Raised vegetable bed

You're not going very high, and you have gravity working to your advantage. I might spray it down once or twice, but I think you'll be just fine (says the person with no actual masonry experience).

Looks beautiful!

[Les]

Re: Raised vegetable bed

Question: should you keep this kind of mortar damp for a week too?

Frances - I don't think you need to - it's not unlike building a brick wall or pillar - we just stack and go. By the way, your mention of buttercups made post in the humor section... Looks great, love the stone.

Les...

[Frances]

Re: Raised vegetable bed

Thank you all for the comments and reassurance, I'll keep you posted on how it goes.

I love the joke, Les!

[texassourdough]

Re: Raised vegetable bed

Hi Frances!

I have built a number of walls around my property. Most are dry stacked, but I have also used cement to stabilize rock walls and to face cinder blocks with limestone rock from my property. Not sure what rock you have, but with limestone it is so porous I find it is much better to soak the rocks a few minutes before applying the cement for if I don't the limestone sucks the water out of the rock too fast and I get a lousy adhesion. I generally TRY to cover the wall that uses cement to slow the drying. I have used everything from old sheets to plastic. I kind of like plastic better - it holds moisture and doesn't have to be wet down so often.

That said, a daily wetting should do fine.

Good Luck!
Jay