Installing Raised Beds

You know what we did this weekend?  We worked on the raised bed garden from dawn to dusk.  It was brutal.  We ache all over.  We made great progress, but we still have a long way to go.  Most (normal) people when they build gardens do a little bit more every year, slowly expanding and upgrading their setup.  Mike and I dove in head first with an all-or-nothing approach: we finally have a yard and we want to do it all and do it right the first time.  So we're building a BIG garden and doing a ton of work up front, but it will be well worth it.

As I've mentioned before, we're doing 4 raised beds at 8'x4' each, and built the frames out of cedar.  We want gravel pathways around all of the beds within the enclosure, so we removed the sod from a 25'x16' space behind the garage.

From there, we spent a ton of time last week leveling the whole thing out.  The backyard behind the garage was surprisingly hilly and sloped and we had to spend a lot of time moving dirt from the high parts into the low sections so that the beds would be level.

Once the 25'x16' space was in good shape (still slightly sloped away from the garage, but much better), it was time to install the raised beds.  We moved the frames into place, and then using a shovel and a level, we leveled out the 8'x4' space where they would sit until the boxes were perfectly level for optimal even drainage within the bed (if the beds are sloped, the water will sit at the lower end).  We dug holes from the frame legs to sit in (they keep the beds from sliding) and installed chicken wire underneath the beds to keep critters from burrowing in.

From there we started hauling in dirt from the giant dirt pile on the driveway to fill each of the beds using a fancy new wheelbarrow from my Dad.

I broke up some sod into small pieces and spread them out inside the bottom of each raised bed.  The greens will help attract worms (one of many helpful tips from my grandfather, who without his help and support this garden would not be possible).  We realized pretty quickly that we bought too much dirt (or they delivered too much - I'm not sure - Sunset and Popular Mechanics online directions said we needed 6 cubic yards and I only ordered 5).  We only used about half of the giant pile, but of course the rest will not go to waste.

In the pictures you can see I buried some soaker hoses for testing.  Once we get everything up and running I'll share more about our watering setup.  You can also see some leftover chainlink fence posts.  We tried to reuse them for the perimeter fence, but we discovered it's not going to work after we took the time to install 6 of them.  I'll share more details about our failed plan in my future fence post, currently our fence adventures are in-progress.