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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

By Barbara

Country living is the best! Being a true spirit of the earth, my garden is all about vegetables and fruit trees and herbs and chickens roaming free. I was keen to really start gardening when we moved to Philadelphia in 2005, but not your typical suburban-type garden – sterile and bug-free! I wanted an edible garden.

25 replies on “Building my raised bed garden”

Hi, have just found your blog – yippee! Have moved from the Eastern Free State to a smaaalll cluster home in Pretoria, but I have a bee in my bonnet about continuing to grow some of my own veggies.
I have an empty, patchy-grass corridor about 3m wide that I want to put raised beddings in. Your show and tell on how you did it has inspired me no end and although mine will be 1m x1m, I can’t wait to get started!

Thank you for sharing this; I want to build some raised bed for some of my vegetables. You have inspired me that maybe I can do it on my own. I look forward to seeing them full of plants. Christina

Awesome job! I built ours last year, and after the first one, the others went at a pretty good clip! The real shock though came when I had to fill them with soil. I just couldn’t see where it all was going. It felt like I was shoveling for days, as each one of mine took a little over a cubic yard of soil! 😉 So worth it though (we have awful native soil here), and my veggies have been rewarding me handsomely this year in return. Can’t wait to see them all planted out!

Oh yes. The soil filling is going to be the buggy! I am sheet mulching and with all the farm land around I have lots of resources. I am hoping to have the same results as you!! Thanks for the inspiration.

Just three comments:

1) love the orange coveralls!

2) I’m pretty sure I never smile that much when working on a garden project, even at the very start of it! I think I need to adjust my attitude and will remember these photos during my next build. 🙂

3) Have you considered digging the holes and sinking the corner posts first, then building the next ones in place? Seems easier in many ways than carrying the completed boxes out there.

Hi Alan! Thanks for your constant sharing and I really appreciate it and to be honest I look for your comment each post 🙂 It always makes me smile.
I decided to cut the legs much shorter, which you don’t see, so my digging was minimal. But I really wanted my hubby to help, so I had to make an excuse to get him to admire my handy work. 🙂

Thanks my buddy! Yes, this is going to be a veggie herb bed with a fruit tree in the middle. sort of experimenting with the idea of permaculture guild. All experimental but fun!!

permaculture guild? Now you have my attention. Seems much more sensible to use a fruit tree for shade, instead of that horrible ugly green plastic shadecloth. Looks good and provides a harvest.

love the whole DIY story.. well done!!! 🙂
inspiring stuff Barbs! look forward to reading and seeing photos of your bed garden.
xx

Hi ren x thanks for stopping by and commenting. next step will be soil building! Keep posted!

Not difficult! But I did get great tips from Tanya Visser and my hubby. preparation is the most important. Let me know if you do:-)

Thanks for that! I am learning about soil and the benefits of sheet mulching. So this will be the next blog post.

Oh thank you so much. Thanks for sharing that with me. The chickens love to garden with me, that’s for sure!

Thanks for your great support. It makes such a big difference when I tackle these big projects!

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