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Sustainability Retrofit of an Existing Residence

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Commenced:	01/08/2011
Submitted:	05/11/2012
Last updated:	07/10/2015
Location:	Chame, Panama, PA
Phone:	+(507) 6533-6487
Climate zone:	Wet/Dry Tropical

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Raised Bed Garden

Project: Sustainability Retrofit of an Existing Residence

Posted by Daniel Owsiany about 12 years ago

Construction of a permanent raised bed, mandala garden.

Since finishing the chicken tractor last month I have turned my attention to constructing the raised bed mandala garden/food forest. I chose the mandala shape because of it's incredible edge properties, the ability to easily water the entire plot with one center sprinkler, and because I find the design most aesthetically pleasing. A raised bed garden is essential at my site since the soils below the topsoil are very high in clay content, which does not drain well, especially during the (May - December) wet season here. This poor drainage causes crops to root rot and it makes gardening at that time impractical.

Because I cannot continually rebuild and maintain infrastructure, and building in circular shapes does not lend itself to using bamboo or other 'organic' materials I have opted for a permanent block construction which should last beyond my lifetime. Although the embodied energy used in such construction is initially higher, I feel that these costs are mitigated when amortized over the life of the structure. I first considered using river rock from a nearby river to construct the walls, but selecting, loading, transporting, unloading, and building with rocks is not very efficient, and definitely not cost effective.

That being said, I have chosen to build a footing from 8" X 8" X 16" concrete block, and then build up to the desired height with 4" concrete block.

Although I was ready to begin this project in earnest, with help from my visiting WWOOFers during the third week of October, Hurricance Sandy created seven straight days of intermittant rain here. This flooded the work site and make it impossible to dig and level the shallow trench for the footing. Therefore, I have had to delay the project off until the drier days of December (See photos attached).

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