While I may have jumped the gun a bit posting about seed starting last week, I did want to get everyone thinking about preparing for spring…and frankly I needed motivation to see past winter’s grip.  Fortunately, we have lots to still keep us busy, and currently we are producing in great numbers homemade concrete block edging for the Vegetable Garden to replace the wooden edging that currently is slowly breaking it’s way back into the soil profile.

Through some R+D, a rounded-top sloped-back shape was chosen, and we set to work building forms as uniformly as possible.  Using old pine boards, plexiglass and PVC pipe,  we put together 6 forms all 2 feet long, which means roughly every two days we have another 12 feet ready to go.

The total edging run is about 240 feet.  Yikes!

Instead of buying far more expensive bags of premade concrete mix, we are mixing our own blend at great savings.  A little more elbow grease expended, but worth it.

Mixing a 1-2-3 blend (one part cement-two parts sand-three parts stone(gravel)), the forms are filled, left to harden and then are released.  The faces are roughed up to remove the glossy sheen from the plexiglass, and then are left to finish hardening.  By removing the blocks before they have completely hardened, the roughing up process is much easier. (The “process” is the wire brush next to the vise in the picture below.)

Has anyone done this for their own garden?  Perhaps you’ve tried Hypertufa planters instead?