You need to delve into your soil and learn some more about it and these simple soil tests can help answer the questions above, 1) Structure. From that soil sample put enough of the rest to make a 4 inch level in a clear 1 quart jar, with a tight fitting lid. Fill that jar with water and replace the lid, tightly. Shake the jar vigorously and then let it stand for 24 hours. Your soil will settle out according to soil particle size and weight. A good loam will have about 1-3/4 inch (about 45%) of sand on the bottom. about 1 inch (about 25%) of silt next, about 1 inch (25%) of clay above that, and about 1/4 inch (about 5%) of organic matter on the top. Drainage. Dig a hole 1 foot square and 1 foot deep and fill that with water. After that water drains away refill the hole with more water and time how long it takes that to drain away. Anything less than 2 hours and your soil drains too quickly and needs more organic matter to slow that drainage down. Anything over 6 hours and the soil drains too slowly and needs lots of organic matter to speed it up. 3) Tilth. Take a handful of your slightly damp soil and squeeze it tightly. When the pressure is released the soil should hold together in that clump, but when poked with a finger that clump should fall apart. 4) Smell. What does your soil smell like? A pleasant, rich earthy odor? Putrid, offensive, repugnant odor? The more organic matter in your soil the more active the soil bacteria will be and the nicer your soil will smell. 5) Life. How many earthworms per shovel full were there? 5 or more indicates a pretty healthy soil. Fewer than 5, according to the Natural Resources Conservation Service, indicates a soil that is not healthy. and they can aid you in determining what you need to do with your soil to make it into a good, healthy soil. Also you should contact your county office of the Washington State University Cooperative Extension Service about having a good, reliable soil test done. Here is a link that might be useful: WSU CES

"Wonderful way to do it, but don't you need to put in DIRT also, Rita? How long before you can plant in these beds? I'm full of questions, but I need to simplify things here too, because I don't walk too well anymore. Hope you can clear up my questions! thanks, susan" Putting down soil....answer = "it depends." Notice that, when planting shrubs, Rita dug DOWN into the underlying soil, the stuff under the grass she was killing. Notice, too, that she made her daylily bed months before planting in it. Reasons for those things = the organic material laid on top of the grass will, over time, decompose, so the level of material will therefore drop. Roots of trees, shrubs, daylilies & other perennials will be exposed. You can plant annuals, including vegetables, right away in a newly made lasagna bed. I use lasagna method to create new beds, although with differences in specifics from what Rita does. For one thing, I use a greater range of material, everything from crumbled leaves (I have ~10 enormous bags full of them in the barn right now), to grass clippings to contents of compost bucket, to aged compost, pine bark fines, to mushroom soil, etc. Also, instead of newspaper, you can use cardboard, although that works better if you want to create straight-edged beds. In both cases, 'tho particularly with the cardboard, you should wet thoroughly before laying down. I soak in a wheelbarrow full of water. The purpose is to help shape the material in the way that you want. Also, no, you don't need to apply an herbicide to grass, as lalalandwi did. The point of the newspaper/cardboard and leaves + whatever is to do that for you, over time. If your grass is quite high, it does help to clip it short, but IMO that's merely to enable you to lay the first layer (newspaper/cardboard) relatively flat. Bear in mind that, even with those layers -- even with deep layers -- you may have certain weeds able to grow through. Various grasses, for example; I believe I've seen mention of bermuda grass, 'tho I may be misremembering. For that stuff, perhaps you would need an herbicide. Also bear in mind that leaving leaves as a nice warm layer in autumn may be an invitation for mice & voles to use as burrows. Not a good thing! I had something burrowing in one of my beds, but didn't notice til this spring. The burrow was about half an inch from my plant of NEON FLAMINGO! So I almost had a valued daylily go through a winter with roots and crown exposed. Ugh. :( Also, many people will layer something on top of the leaves, particularly if they're making beds in autumn/winter. It's for neatness as much as for any other reason - to keep leaves from blowing around. And, relative to whole ones, crumbled leaves will both decompose more quickly and blow around less. If you have many questions about this and similar methods, you should go over to the soil & composting forum on this web site. Many people with much experience there. Not to mention, it'll be on topic. :)))

Randy - so your double channel is attached directly to the hoops, no wooden (or composite lumber) hipboard? How is the plastic attached to the single channel and hipboard? Just tuck a fold of the continuous sheet of film into the channel to hold it, then let the rest fall down the side to the steel tubing which rolls it up? Thinking about it, I can see that would work, but the wiggle wire doesn't wiggle out of the channel when you put the sides up and down multiple times (would be a problem whether single or double channel, but with double channel at least it's just the side that may come off, not the whole thing)? There must be a reason why people use double channel mounted on hipboards? Randy - can you post pix of your 2 different channels/hipboards? I'm also wondering how to hold the pipe for the roll-up sides up - bungies strong enough or do you have half pipe clamps mounted on the ends to slip the ends of the pipe into (and bungie the middle to something so it doesn't sag)? If double channel is stiff enough to mount directly to hoops, I could do that NOW. I mean, I've got to mount it somewhere, might as well do it in final location. I just didn't want to take the time to buy lumber for hipboards this month and put them up before putting channel up. But long-term plan was to mount rain gutters on the hipboards too and try to put rain barrels out there so maybe I should stick to original plan. Thanks Cole, the baseboards are very old treated lumber, I don't know if that will cause problems with the film over the next couple of months. I do have some cypress I was going to use for hipboards but I used the better pieces for raised beds (8-10" wide) rather than rip them down so I will have to find something else for hipboards. May have to be 8ft lengths of PT 2x4 (1x4?) to allow room for gutters, painted with latex (not oil?) The devil is in the details...

I'm not sure that you could find risers that are that short. Another solution could be to make a tuck in the platform of the bedskirt (the part that is under the mattress). I would make a 2" tuck down the center of the platform, and secure with safety pins. Depending on the style of skirt, you could pull it up closer to the headboard to shorten the foot end, or if that would interfere with the corners, you could safety pin up the foot end on the platform a bit also. Hope this description makes sense!