Northwest Harvest House Week 21: George Ostrow's New Green Design Project

The Northwest Harvest House has devoted a significant part of its 1 acre lot to raised bed vegetable gardens and an adjacent fruit orchard. The design of these beds changed from 30 rectangular beds boxed in by cedar timbers to 5 terraces retained by stone walls for greater flexibility in crop arrangement. 

The terraces step down the 10% natural grade of the site. The dry stack stone came direct from Iron Mountain quarry in nearby Granite Falls.

Besides a green thumb, the key to a successful garden is soil preparation. The landscape installer, N.W Bloom, did a great job. Balancing cut and fill, they used lightweight equipment for the rough grading and machine tilled the dirt to a depth of 12 inches, to assure drainage. Over top an 18 inch layer of “three way” (loam, sand, compost) mix was brought in, then top dressed with a 2 inch layer of certified organic worm castings from Yelm.

To protect the compost over the winter of 2011/2012, a cover crop called Austrian pea was planted and then covered with temporary plastic horticultural sheeting to prevent erosion and nutrient leaching. In a few weeks the sheeting will be removed when the cover crop gets established. Planting will take place in the spring of 2012.  

George Ostrow is principal of VELOCIPEDE architects and member of Northwest EcoBuilding Guild, U.S. Green Building Council, Passivehouse Northwest and Built Green.