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Building my raised bed garden

I finally had a burst of energy this week and a bee in my bonnet to get my back garden started. It looks like we will not start with the backyard fencing until next year, so my interest turned to the designing of my back garden raised bed area. I had all my measurements  and my wooden slat sizes sketched out and I went to the Pole Yard to buy my 16 slats and the 76 x 76 wood for the legs. Grabbing my bright orange overall – yes, I have my own one – I got straight to work!! I have to say here that it was the inspiring Tanya Visser from The Gardener Magazine DVD series that got me motivated to build this on my own. Thanks Tanya!! Girl Power!!

I started with one raised bed to get the feel of size and effort! It took me nearly three hours to assemble and place it in the garden! I will be building another two. Well, the photos speak for themselves and all I can say is that I did it all by myself – with a bit of coaching from my hubby!

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Whew! Ok, so I have now finished the one side. I still need to make another side and then combine the two sides together. This is where I need to get my hubby involved (well, he is taking the photo’s of me too, by the way!). It is quite a big box at 1.5m x 1.5m. Check how big it is!

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The legs were a bit too long, so I chopped them down by half so I did not have to dig such big holes – whew! The ground is not quite level so I had to make sure the sides were all horizontal. The chickens love it when I bring out the shovel! They had a ball. I was finished!

But a job well done! I know that I can cope and that my vision of building 2 more is not so daunting!

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Now, for the next stage of building the soil that needs to go into these raised beds. My soil is very clayey, so I have to create my own rich, composted soil. I have been researching Sheet Mulching so I will be sharing with you my next task of creating this lovely soil from scratch. But that will be the next blog post.

Happy gardening
xxx

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Barbie's garden Design Do it yourself Gardening Products Reviews

The DIY Planter

DIY PlanterHere is the Planter you gave me for my birthday. I just love it! It works beautifully and I so love this that I am going to make more for the garden – they are simple to put together. And now that you have given me your dimensions, we are going to be busy building a whole lot of them. They are waist high, so you have an easy reach when you pick your ‘salad’ for lunch and no pests. What a pleasure.