Well, they're termites then - is there any sign of damage on any of the walnut shells? Otherwise, I'd think they were attracted to some sort of wood, maybe framing the raised bed? They sure do that here. There are termites, and then there are other termites, and the two species we have out here are probably not the ones you deal with there. I have termites around. I mulch heavily with pine bark, but they don't seem to touch that. Leave a piece of wood half-buried, or use untreated wood delineating a raised bed, or an old tree stump, and they show up within a year or two. Anyway, I don't think they do much damage to an annual garden - some species do attack the roots of some trees. I've got some now working on the roots of an old willow tree that blew down 10 years ago, and every now and again, I walk by where it used to be and the ground gives way to some foot deep sinkhole where they've eaten out the roots. This post was edited by david52 on Sat, May 31, 14 at 21:33

You could also make your own 'breezy' containers. Make a frame out of something, wood, pvc pipe, whatever and wrap it in screen. If you don't feel like being that creative/crafty (like me) I found some picnic plate covers, they're a metel mesh. One I sewed screen around it and found a plastic bowl, drilled holes in it and sewed the bottom of the screen to the bowl. I use that (hung up, didn't add anything for support to stand it up) for my chrys. to eclose in. And the other I found another (happens to match) plastic bowl. I drilled a few small holes in the bowl, took some wierd yarn/string stuff, tied the plate cover to the bowl. There's 5 strings. And the neat thing is, all I have to do is untie the strings and toss the 2 halves in the dishwasher to disinfect. Below is a link to a simular mesh cover. I bought mine for a buck each at a Dollar General store. And the bowls I used were "Wavy" bowls at walmart for 75 cents. The wavy bowl gave me a little lip on the edge to drill holes in. Be creative! There's lots of stuff out there you can make cages out of. Wire Mesh trash cans, dollar stores usually carry small version. Or the mesh baskets.I find myself looking in the summer clearance stuff lateley go ooh! I could make a cat cage out of that! and that! But I don't really need anymore.... Oh, I did take 2 plastic bottoms from 2 plant pots (the things that are supposed to catch the water), It had 3 raised bumps where it originally attatched to the pot, stuck some small pvc pipe (really small) over 2 of the raised bumps, then attatched the other plastic thing face down on top of the pvc and wrapped it in some screen I had left over, w/ an opening in the front. Made a neat little 10" diamter, 12" tall cage. See, you can use anything! Here is a link that might be useful: mesh food covers

I would suggest, for your particular soil, adding compost and vermiculite. Sand drains beautifully, to the extent that you would rather it hold moisture for longer, and it isn't very strong on plant nutrients. My father has sand in his front yard (with gravel underneath), it drains about as well as anything could, and the addition of compost and vermiculite has made a tremendous difference to how well his gladiolae and roses grow. With the soil you are working with I would try and mix these in down to spade depth. I bet you will see the need to water less. If you can find Mel's original edition of the SFG book, which is white and quite a bit thicker than the current book, you can read his extensive information about amending soil. The same ingredients, vermiculite in particular and also compost/organic matter, which are famous for "lightening" and improving the drainage of heavy, dense, (clayey, etc.) soils, will have the opposite effect on sandy soils, and will help them retain the watter you apply longer, and allow your plants to make better use of them. Your lack of weeds and dieing grass may be symptoms of the sandy soil being unable to support them well, especially in dry weather, due to lack of water and nutrients. Then by amending your soil and mulching your garden bed you made a much better growing environment,and, like Mel's Mix, you started without much by way of pre-existing weeds, and kept the weeds well under control. The other topic that Mel hit much harder in the original book was not walking on the soil, I know from my own years of pre-SFG experience how much of a difference this makes. Mel designed his suggested raised beds so that it would not be an issue, since he specifies a design that you can always reach the middle of, especially if you can get to at least three sides. In your situation I would try and plan places to walk into my beds to make sure I can reach everywhere without walking on the soil, it makes a tremendous difference, and is the other big reason for the raised beds. (Clearly defining an area and keeping the plot to a size you can reach all the way into so that there is never any need to walk in it.)

As an exercise in integration design, you may wish to get a liner drawing and see how it might be adapted. Wolf, for one, provides drawings of their equipment in various of their publications. Find their biggest hood insert and see how it is intended to be adapted to the exterior cabinet. Never mind the Wolf search, my curiosity lead me to the link below. It appears from the photo on this page linked to from here that the idea is to allow exposed wood. If I were using such a configuration, I would probably use ipe or redwood (perhaps too porous for finishes) or other fire-resistant exotic wood at the bottom where there is potential for direct impingement. The rest of the wood could be that of the cabinets. Also, it looks like cleaning has been eased in the example on the linked page, where the wood may be oak, by using significant protective coating. As a caution, it is possible that Wolf is illustrating a configuration intended for a "poser kitchen" (wouldn't be an unheard-of use for Wolf products). The designer of a real kitchen may with to start from first principles for integration of a hood liner. And as noted above, I'm confident that the custom hood makers could build a flanged liner if suitably funded. Another alternative is to put a standard liner well up in a larger cabinet and have built an extension "skirt" that brings the liner bottom to the bottom of the cabinet at an extended depth. These need to be sloped so that rising effluent does not tend to reflect down. (In the Wolf image, effluent hitting the cook's side wood panel could easily curl out of the hood zone; or in other words, the capture area is that of the liner (or maybe just the baffles) and not the extended wood section (depending on whether excess cfm is available). If I were using this liner and wanted to keep the lamp function, I'd consider just moving it out from the wall and using straight extensions on three sides and a sloped one at the back. Another option discussed on these pages a bit is to mount the liner out but not farther up in the cabinet, and put a sloped backsplash on the rear wall (where the square tiles are in the image). If cost were no object, a Wolf Pro Island Hood could be integrated into a cabinet (eliminating the need to dust all that stainless steel) providing an excellent depth capability for extravagant cooking. My Pro Island hood has 26 inches of open air capture depth, and of the difference with its 34 inches of physical depth, at least half would also qualify if mounted next to a wall. kas Here is a link that might be useful: link to links for Wolf pdfs