Raised Garden Beds

Hello!  After working on a small "test" garden this year (a few tomato plants, peppers, and cucumbers) I decided to ramp it up for next year's garden.  (Tennessee is forgiving to my "black" thumb.) I want more space, more produce.  

2011 Garden Patch

My dilemmas in planning a larger garden were "what" and "where"?  I considered breaking ground and tearing up grass to establish a classic garden patch.  But the backbreaking labor involved in removing grass (for us -- mostly crabgrass), and the potentially poor soil quality beneath the grass, were big discouragements. 

After a bit of on-line research, I decided on raised beds.  The advantages to raised beds are appealing:  they are affordable to build and install; we could fill the beds with brand new soil rather than amend (potentially poor and rocky) existing soil (i.e. "rototill" -- ugh); and we could install raised beds without having to remove the underlying grass (not ideal, but doable - we hope). 

Sunset's on-line garden resource offers an attractive and easy bed design.  We decided on the following plan: http://www.sunset.com/garden/backyard-projects/ultimate-raised-bed-how-to-00400000011938/

We built two 4' x 8' beds to start, and placed them in an open part of our yard that gets a lot of sun and has space to expand.  Cost (per bed): $80 (materials) + $33 (soil) + $20 (sealer paint) = $133. 

Take a look!

Completed Raised Beds (unfilled)

The following photos show our build process. Sunset's website covers the "how-to's" of the bed design, materials, etc. - so I won't repeat those instructions here. I'll just show a few modifications we made to the Sunset plan.  In the following photo, the bed is turned upside down, and we added hardware cloth (wire) to the bottom of the bed to prevent gophers, moles and voles from burrowing into our future gardens:

Completed build (upside down) with hardware cloth tacked to bottom.

We measured our bed placement in the yard, placed the bed, marked the leg placement with yard paint, and dug four shallow holes for each bed to set the legs.

Leg holes marked, cut, and dug in yard.

I laid cardboard over the grass before positioning the beds. The cardboard should smother the underlying grass and eventually decay, allowing the plants to grow deeper into native soil. The roots of our veggies will grow through the hardware cloth:

We then installed the 1" PVC pipes inside the beds to hold the "hoops" for bird netting or row covers. We cut the pipe to 13" (rather than 12") so we can cap them off when not in use to keep soil and other debris from accumulating in and clogging the pipe.  We also decided on three hoop holders (rather than two) for added versatility and support, and left the 1/2" PVC hoops long (instead of cutting them to 6').

Close-up of Installed 13" Hoop-Holder 

Raised Bed Showing PVC Hoop-Holders (1") and Hoops (1/2")

Finally -- the new soil!!  Instead of buying expensive bagged soil, we found a bulk supplier here in town called "The Mulch Company." (http://www.mulchcompany.com/) Each 4'x8' bed holds one cubic yard of soil.  We purchased their "Ultra Soil" for $33/cubic yard.  A deal! 

Two Cubic Yards of UltraSoil

And here are the finished beds!  You'll see the white, capped PVC hoop-holders sticking up -- which I will paint a deep brown to match the soil so they're not so obtrusive. We'll also be adding a small 4'x4' bed for herbs, and a long skinny bed (2'x8') for cutting flowers (but these can come later....) :-D

Two Raised Beds (4' x 8').  Cost: $133/bed

Note: The Sunset plan recommends building the raised beds with cedar planks.  Our local homestore didn't have cedar (which is more expensive) and finding cedar would require some hunting. So we used untreated 2x6 pine planks. We decided to preserve the wood with a new product called "Restore" - which is recommended for restoring old decks. We decided on "Restore" at the recommendation of a Home Depot paint associate -- as it's supposed to offer good waterproofing and last longer than deck sealer. You can also choose from about 30 color tints. We decided on a sage green to blend the beds into the landscape.  The product is not very easy to apply, and it's not recommended for new wood. So we'll see how it works.  If you're interested in this product, I shot a quick video of the application.  (Sorry for the shaky camera work, but I was shooting with my iPhone in one hand, and roller in the other!)