Our home sits on a little over 1/4 acre. Most of our backyard is a giant slope with half of it being in a flood zone. If you're from around here, you know it can unexpectedly flood with hurricanes, rain, and poor drainage.
With that being said, this leaves me with not a whole lot of space to grow vegetables. Last summer we installed one raised garden bed and this year we’ve added two more. In this blog post, I am going to outline what materials we used to create our garden beds!
Materials and tools we used to make a 4’x8′ garden bed:
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- Untreated Pine Wood Boards x 3 (Dimensions: 8′ long x 12″ tall)
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- Deck Screws
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- Drill
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- Landscape Fabric
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- Landscape Pins
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- Shovel
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- Tape Measure
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- Spray Paint
Instructions:
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- First, cut one of the 8′ boards in half. We purchased our wood from Home Depot and had someone in the lumber department cut it for free!! After cutting, you should have two 8′ boards (sides) and two 4′ boards (ends).
- Before assembling the wood, you need to prepare the area where the garden bed will go. Measure out on the grass the 4’x8′ space. Use the spray paint to mark the area. This should give you a good outline to see where to remove the grass.
- Next, take your shovel and dig up the grass in the 4’x8′ area. Sometimes it’s easier if you use a weedeater or lawnmower and cut the grass down very short before shoveling.
- Then, lay down the landscape fabric and secure the fabric with the landscape pins.
- Using the deck screws, drill together the corners of the boards to make a rectangle. The easiest way is to make an “L” shape with the 8′ board and the 4′ board and screw that corner together before moving on to the next corner. I held the corners in place while my husband drilled. We used 3 screws on each corner to make sure they stay in place.
- Finally, place your garden bed directly over the landscape fabric.
Now that you have a beautiful garden bed, you need to fill it with soil!!
I used a mixture of Organic Raised Bed Garden Soil (10 2 cu. ft bags) and Compost (5 2 cu. ft bags) from my local garden center.
Use this link to calculate how much soil you need based on your garden bed dimensions. https://www.gardeners.com/how-to/soil-calculator/7558.html
Till next time!