The side yard is a fine and dandy place to grow vegetables. It’s already given us more tomatoes than we can eat. However, we’re aiming to cut our grocery store trips waaay down (and don’t homegrown veggies just taste better?). Since we have plenty of lawn, and live right across from a massive expanse of grass, we decided to put a couple of garden beds on our lawn.
We built ours 4′ wide and 8′ long. 22″ tall to keep the puppy from jumping up and rooting through our veggies. It’s entirely unnecessary to have yours quite so tall, unless you have a small dog that loves to dig!
PARTS (per garden bed):
6 – 8′ long 2×8’s
1 – 8′ long 4×4’s
24 – 3″ long wood screws
TOOLS:
circular saw (or get the wood cut to size at the hardware store)
power drill/screwdriver
We had the hardware store cut some of our wood to size, and we cut some of it at home with a circular saw. Three of the 2×8’s need to be cut in half. The 4×4 needs to be cut into 4 22″ long sections.
Cutting the 4x4s into 22" long sections
Put 2 of the 4×4 sections on the ground, and line up 3 of the 4′ long 2×8’s. Pre-drill two holes on each piece into the post. Make sure the drill bit is slightly thinner than the screws you are using.
If you're doing this alone, it might be best to do on a flat surface
Screw the 4′ long 2×8 pieces into the post. Line up the 22″ long 4×4 post on the other side and do the same. You should end up with a piece that looks like this. Three 4′ long 2×8’s and two 22″ long 4×4’s.
Devin in a most un-ladylike pose!
Repeat for the opposite side. Then stand those up, and start putting on the 8′ long 2×8’s. Two screws for each end of the board.
Put your back into it, kid!
A very short time later…
We had the long ends overlapping the short ends for a neater look
Now we have a raised garden bed! We’ll have to dump dirt in it, and raise up some seedlings, but you get the idea. Since we have it in our lawn, I’ll probably be sealing the outside to protect the wood from our sprinklers (though we turned off the one that was inside the bed. We have a hose from our sprinkler system coming up this side of the yard, so we’re going to put our garden beds on automatic sprinklers as well.
DON’T MAKE MY MISTAKE:
Build it where you plan to have it lay, or close by. It is heavy!
COST:
$43 for the wood + $6 for more screws than we needed = $49
TIME INVESTMENT:
If you include the hardware store trip and the cutting, about 3 hours.
Suburban Sustainability 