Construction of raised beds
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I’ve built recently two raised concrete block beds for a TAFTA House in Durban for utilizing their bio-waste with my worms to make vermi-compost as the soil medium for vegetable growing by the residents. I thought of it whilst reading Wendy’s article about keeping her chicken run clean, especially in Winter time.
This method can also be used for keeping rabbit cages clean by placing them on top of the raised block bed. All these cages need to have a strong wired base so the droppings and waste products can drop into the block bed.
Construct the bed by using three concrete blocks per layer, as the width and make the length longer than the cage as you want to move it along the row of blocks to harvest the vermi-compost below regularly during the year. Use at least two layers of concrete blocks to give you adequate height for ease of operation.
I would then fill the raised bed to the top of the bed, with well soaked 2-week old grass, which will be the bedding for my Eisenia Fetida composting earthworms. The grass will soon dropped down as it compacts and can be continually topped up with grass cuttings or sawdust or strips of damp newspaper/shredded paper etc. which will all feed the worms in turn, producing more compost.
The chicken/rabbit droppings and liquids will drop down and get absorbed by the bedding which will be an excellent food source for my Eco-worms (website ecoworms.iwarp.com) giving a non-smell, 100% organic vermi-compost for your vegetable beds. It is labour-saving and should be free of flies too. Just hang some of your home-made fly traps on the fence for any fly problems.
A removable wooden front can be added instead of the concrete front, which can make compost harvesting easier. Or just move the cage a bit further down the row and dig the compost out of the raised bed.
If you really want to harvest the vermi-tea you can build the raised bed on a slight slope, first start off by constructing it on a heavy duty roofing plastic sheet, then place the concrete blocks on top of it to build the beds. The one sloping side of the raised bed can drain the vermi-tea into an open gutter where it can be collected in a sunken bucket, which needs to be emptied regularly by mixing it with 1 vermi-tea to 10 to 20 times ratio of water. This vermi-tea will not burn the most sensitive of seedlings and makes an ideal liqui-fertilizer.
You will be amazed by the sudden growth and health of your plants, and excellent taste of the vegetables too.