It was gloriously cool this morning when I scoped out one of the raised beds I'm hoping to revive next spring.

This bed gets a nice dose of sun early in the day, even with most of the yard covered with tree canopy. If I can round up someone with a chainsaw, it can be exposed to even more. That's a project for another day, though.

Only one end of the bed has the wood planking in semi-reasonable shape. The long sides collapsed and have been rotting for years. The other end of the bed only has a whisper of the plank left.

This bed is pretty narrow, so I grabbed the smallest of my scrounged cardboard boxes, a small box cutter, a pair of gloves and my supervisor. She's especially good at finding and collecting any burrs in the yard. It's a tough job, as there are three different kinds! I managed to get samples of all of them on my gloves. The large round ones are the nastiest.

I did a quick clean up around the edges and threw the waste in the middle of the bed.

I cut the box in half, length-wise. This was just wide enough to cover the entire bed with a little leeway around the perimeter. The cardboard will kill the weeds underneath - death by darkness. I cut a few notches to accommodate the T-posts and anchor the ends in place. I loosely 'wove' the flaps together in the center to further discourage movement.

This is the point in the process that I'm hoping to get double-duty out of this layer. Not only will the cardboard serve as the 'ceiling' of the the weed cemetery, it's also going to be the 'floor' of a compost pile.

Using three tomato cages that I didn't need for this season's Ragtag Garden, I'm going to (try to) compost in place.

I spaced the cages evenly down the middle of the bed - punching through the cardboard and inserting all the way up to the first ring. This will help hold the cardboard in place AND serve to keep the compost pile from migrating.

We get a massive amount of leaves in the fall, so they will make up the bulk of the pile. The green material, I hope to gather from clearing the 'Jungle' and at least one more grass mowing. I think I'm only going to use the grapevine leaves, though, because that area is mostly burr producing weeds, too. Those particular weeds need to go - permanently. I'll also have to start directing our produce waste there, instead of the trash. We don't have much, but it will certainly help with diversity. If I can't get it hot enough, I may need to go the vermiculture route. Time will tell which will work best. Maybe my new Farmer's Almanac calendar will give me some tips or clues!

The front of the bed was still somewhat exposed, so I put in a few landscape fabric pins to snug down the long edge.

The intention with this set-up is to have the ability to disturb the pile on occasion, instead of turning it as is normally done, plus keep the pile elevated to allow for sufficient aeration for the composting process to occur. The cages are flexible enough to withstand a good shaking, but sturdy enough to support the mass of the pile. If I need to use worms to do the composting, this arrangement should work well for them, too. The cages can act as 'food towers' and be supplied from kitchen waste. I'm sure they could be rigged to keep pesky critters out, if needed.

Not a bad start to the day and a perfect way to rev up a Ragtag raised bed!