I debated on how I was going to mix up my magic mel's mix, thinking of borrowing someone's tarp to do the folding technique, or mix it in small portions in buckets, but I finally decided to just mix it in the box directly.
Taking gravity into account, I spread out my 5 bags of stuff in layers in my box based on weight. Lighter stuff first. I was hoping that the lighter things would want to come to the top and the heavier things to the bottom.
So, vermiculite, peat moss, then the 3 bags of poop dirt. Using a rake borrowed from the coworker that introduced me to square foot gardening, I just mixed and mixed the stuff until it was more or less uniform. It was after dark by this time, but I think I did a fairly thorough job.
It wasn't too hard to mix in the box, but the mix wound up being a couple of inches shy of the top of the box. About 6-7 inches of dirt in a 9 inch tall box. I would have liked to fill the box to the top, but I don't think i would have been able to mix any more material directly in the box. Next year, I should add 1 - 2 cf of compost to raise the soil level.
Premixing into a wheel barrow might have worked out better, but I was lacking a wheel barrow. If/when I need to mix up more, I think I'll try for the tarp method and see how that goes.
About dividing the box into square feet, doing things by the book has you using thin slats of wood screwed together in a grid and laid onto the dirt. Well, I didn't want to bother with wooden slats, so I decided that twine would be just fine as a divider.
I bought $3 worth of 'garden twine' from the spawn of the devil store (starts with Wal and ends with mart), knowing I could find a way to string it in the box. When I got home I checked my wood working supplies and settled on some pin nails hammered into the inner side of the box a bit and bent over into a hook. After a bit I had a nice green twine grid in my box, with nothing to catch fingers of clothes on.
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