We have been in our new house just over a year and last spring we were so busy working on the inside that I did not have time to even think about the yard. But now with the inside somewhat complete, we can now focus on the outside. First up- creating a vegetable/fruit garden.

I picked the back corner of the yard which receives full sun but is not directly in your line of sight when you look outside from the house. My original plan involved putting a short fence around it to keep pups out but after examining the soil we had to change our plans. The soil in that spot is incredibly sandy, which is odd since in this area we have a lot of clay. So we think an old playset used to be back there and they dumped sand for the kids. So our options became either digging up all the sand and getting rid of it somehow or building raised beds. We chose option B. Obviously it was not a very difficult decision.

But we were gardening and raised bed virgins so some research was in order.

We learned we had a lot of options in terms of materials-

Stone/brick-too expensive and too permanent in case our adventures in vegetable gardening do not go as well as we hope

Landscape Timbers- cheap but very we unsure what wood they we actually made of and how they would hold up

Cedar-pretty, resists rot, can do it ourselves but still expensive if making multiple beds

Pressure-Treated-cheap, easy to use but conflicting info about it's use for food gardens. From what I have gathered from my online research, pressure treated wood used to be treated with arsenic which is not to be used in food gardens. However, they are no longer treated with that particular chemical and it is now safe to use in food gardens. I found the brand that Home Depot stocks (Yella Wood), looked at their website and it verified this. I still might line it with plastic to make sure, but we will see.

So pressure treated won out from a cost/appearance perspective.

Now off to Home Depot....

We made three 8x3 beds. We decided on this size from how they would fit in that area of our yard and they would have to been thin enough for me to reach into the middle.

Materials (for 1 8x3 bed):
Six eight-feet-long 2 by 6 boards
One 6-foot-long 4-by-4
3 1/2 inch outdoor screws

(These lengths can be adjusted depending on how many beds you are making and the prices of different lengths of wood)

Tools:
Tape Measure
Pencil
Drill
Saw (Sawzall, Miter saw, or circular saw)

1. Measure and cut four sixteen-inch pieces of the 4-by-4 lumber.
2. Measure and cut four thirty-six inch pieces of the 2-by-6 lumber.
Materials for three beds cut.
3. Put the bed together upside down on a flat surface. The four by fours are the corner posts. Put a two by six on it's narrow side and place the four by four upright at the end. Screw the four by four into the two by six with two screws. Repeat with another four-by-four on the other end of the two-by-six. Then add a second two-by-six to make a second level. Repeat with other sides. If you want the edges to overlap allow the short side pieces to overhang like in the picture.
Putting the boards together
4. Carry the bed over to your desired location and flip.

5. Place the beds where you want them. Mark the ground and dig out the four corners to the depth that so that the four posts would be sunk into the ground and the long boards would be flush to the ground. If the ground is not level pack dirt solidly along the long boards.

6. If you have gophers or other burrowing rodents in your area you might want to line the bottom of the beds with wire mesh to keep them out. You also could line them with plastic if you have any concerns about the pressure treated wood. I skipped both of these steps.

7. Fill with dirt. We filled ours with enriched soil from the local garden center delivered to our house.

We also added gravel to the outside of the beds for walkways but this not a necessary step.

8. Add seeds and/or plants and enjoy!

We put three beds together in an hour so it was relatively quick and easy but this is definitely a two person job so that one person could hold it still while the other put in the screw. A miter saw would have made the cuts on the four-by-four straighter but since we do not currently own one, we made due with the sawzall.

We can't wait to enjoy freshly grown fruits and vegetables from our new raised beds!

Update August 2009- The beds are a rousing success! The veggies are growing vigorously which I largely attribute to the great soil quality and drainage of the beds.