Building a Raised Garden Bed

James

July 12, 2008

If you are like me, and you have a career as developer/designer/architect in the web industry, you sometimes need to step away from lining up ones and zeroes and build a physical object that has mass, width, height, and depth. In the past this urge has led me to do things like finishing my basement and setting up a woodworking shop. More recently, I decided that we needed a raised vegetable garden bed in our backyard.

The Plan

First, I had to find a plan. I know that it is really just a big wooden box, but I still wanted to find a plan that had some thought behind it. I found a suitable one at Sunset.com.

This plan includes steps for installing bird netting and a mesh lining to thwart aerial invasions and subterranian attacks. I don’t plan on planting any crops of interest to our avian friends and I am pretty sure that we do not have any gophers or moles so I decided to omit these features. I suspect that the pests that will cause the largest problem will be bugs.

The Materials

I opted for cedar for the construction because:

it smells nice;
it weathers well;
it is naturally insect resistant; and
unlike some construction lumber, it has not been treated with pesticide(s).

I purchased the cedar at the local building centre. Here’s what I got for about $150 (no, cedar is not cheap):

6 x 8′ 4×6 cedar boards
1 x 8′ 4×4 cedar post (the plan calls for a 6′ post but they only had 8′ posts)
a box of 2 1/2″ construction screws (you only need 32)

The Site

The first step was to find a suitable location. Since my backyard is small and already dominated by the kids’ playset, this was a simple task. It will go in the back corner of the yard. Hopefully passers-by will not help themselves to a handful of herbs.

Power Tools

Cutting the wood to the correct dimensions was simple. All I had to do was cut two of the 4X6 boards in half and cut 4 16 inch lengths from the 4×4 post. This took a whopping 5 minutes. It took longer to find the circular saw than to make the cuts.

Assembly

I probably should have assembled the bed on the nice flat floor in the garage but instead I did it on the lawn and it turned out just fine. To the eye it looks perfect. To the measuring tape, it is a wee bit off. I don’t think the tomatoes and chillies will mind if the garden bed is not entirely up to Norm Abram’s specifications. I fastened the pieces using 2 1/2 inch construction screws.

Excavation

This garden bed has the posts protruding a few inches below the bottom of the bed. It is intended that the posts rest in four holes in the ground to provide some lateral stability. Sounds simple enough: just dig four holes in the right position, drop the posts in and I am done. Nope. The chosen site is not level. Some excavation was required.

I first removed all the sod. Using my spade, I cut into the grass along the perimeter of the bed and also made three evenly spaced lengthwise cuts. Then, I proceeded tear up the four strips using good old fasioned elbow grease. This part was time consuming and back breaking. Removing sod without the proper tools is not easy.

After I removed the sod, I had to strategically remove soil to create a level surface for the bed. You will need a carpenter’s level to get this right. This was an iterative process of removing some soil, then dropping the bed in place and checking for level.

Soil

A triple mix was recommended by a friend on Twitter. So we called up a local garden center and ordered one of those gigantic bags of soil. The web site claimed “delivery in a snap” but we had to wait 2 days for it to arrive.

When it arrived, the driver was able to place the bag right next to the bed. He even offered to drop it right in the bed so we could then simply slice open the bag and let it all pour out. There was about a fifth of the bag left after filling the bed, so it was a good thing we didn’t put the bag in the bed.

Planting

In the spring, we had started a few plants in pots on the front porch. From seed we planted:

We also bought four tiny tomato plants (about 3″) and put them in pots. For some reason the oregano and thyme did not germinate, so we picked up some already growning plants from the dregs at the garden center for a buck each (which was cheaper than the seed packs I purchased in the spring). All of these plants were quickly transplanted to the bed and, two days later, all seem to be doing fine.

We still plan to plant some carrots and potatoes in the remaining space.