Garden Build, Part 1: Raised Garden Beds
I have spent so many years dreaming of perfect raised garden beds and sketching out the ideal garden.
In fact, quite a few years ago, I even tried out a different type of garden bed box that ended up a bust. But we have to start somewhere, right? And the project taught me so much about what I did and didn’t want in a garden bed.
Eventually, I settled on sort of a double keyhole garden design. But my original sketches actually envisioned the garden on the opposite side of my front walkway.
It was my husband, actually, who asked me to consider the part of the yard we’re using now. It’s too narrow to really do much with, and it gets hours of great sunlight each day.
I started by measuring out the space, and I determined that to effectively use the entire area, I would need eight 4×2 beds and four 8×2 beds. The problem was that this design, while beautiful, just wasn’t practical during COVID and immediately after when the price of lumber skyrocketed.
While prices were high, we made a prototype 4×2 bed to see if the design would work for us. Because we didn’t really have the budget for “rot-resistant” wood, we determined that attaching 4x4s in the corners would help us get the longest life possible out of the beds.
The prototype raised garden bed has lasted a year in the Florida weather with no immediate sign of rot, so we proceeded to build all of our beds out of untreated pine. Note: Untreated is so important. Otherwise, you’ll end up with all kinds of chemicals leaching into your soil.
If you’re interested in building your own raised garden beds, read on for a list of materials and instructions.
Materials:
- Untreated pine 2-inch boards. For our 4×2 beds, we used three 8×2 boards for each box. For our 8×2 beds, we used five 8×2 boards.
- Untreated 8x4x4 posts. We cut each of our posts into 12-inch blocks to create beds roughly 1 foot deep. You may find your boxes have about an inch of “feet” at the bottom. Simply put that side of the box face down.
- #10 3-inch exterior wood screws
- Impact drill/driver
- Miter or circular saw
Instructions
Make your cuts. For a 4×2 box, you’ll need to cut four 2-foot boards and four 4-foot boards. Cut a post into 12-inch blocks, saving four of the blocks for another box.
Begin by attaching the edges of a 2-foot board to 4×4 posts with two screws each. This will be one “end” of your box. Do this again for the other side. From there, connect your two ends with a 4-foot board that runs along the outside (essentially covering up the edges of your 2-foot boards), using two screws at each corner. To increase the depth of your box to one foot, add another layer of boards all the way around and attach similarly.
You may notice, depending on the cut of the lumber, that you have about an inch of a “foot” where the 4×4 sticks out above the box. Simply turn it upside down and use that side as the base of your box.
Arrange your boxes in whatever design you choose, depending on the size of your plot.
I’ll keep you posted about how the beds hold up long term. I’m pretty confident, given how well our other bed has endured, that we will get a few growing seasons out of these.
Stop back by the blog tomorrow, and we’ll share our preliminary method of protecting our garden from animals, namely our hyper yellow lab.
