Raised Flower bed step 1

Since we moved into this house we have been saying that we are going to put a small garden in. Well, I am finally doing it!

I am making my garden with raised garden beds. Mostly I am doing this because our soil sucks here! It is 60%+ clay; we had to put dry well’s in to help drain the back yard swamp. Reason number 2 is so I dan’t have to bend as far to get to any weeds that may arise. With all that in mind I first had to draw out what I wanted.

The first step is to pick the area of your yard in which you want to place said garden. That we pretty simple for us because we had alread talked about it. With help of Hubby and a measuring tape, I was gathered the deminsions of my alloted space. Next came the drawing board.

You might be one of those people that can just wing it. If you are, more power to you! I am not. I need it one paper. With straight, or mostly straight, lines. It took 4 versions and hours later to have a final working plan. This includes the last minute redesign of this years boxes; we are doing them in stages. Once I had the plans and all the numbers needed. I started to pick my wood type.

And this isn’t even the final version!!

Now, you can buy the boxes pre cut and with all the pieces or, you can be a true DIY’er; I choose the true DIY’er version. After much research I settled on cedar. It is going to last for a while and won’t change the ph levels to much.  It isn’t necessarily the cheapest wood on the market though. Once you have the wood picked you need to settle on a height. I wanted the tallest boards I could get; that way I wouldn’t have to stack short boards. I finally ended up with Utility cedar measuring 2 inches deep 10 inches wide. The length is the lesson learned. Apparently lumber yards, Parr Lumber specifically, find it okay to be off by 1.1%. That’s all fine and dandy till you get a 20 foot board that only measures 19 FT 1.5 inches! Talk about a real shock and an emotional up flare!! Several people that I told in my dissatisfied state advised that I call and complain and ask for my money back ect. Once I was calm I did the math and realized that I was only out $7 and that they had delivered the load for free; instead of charging me the $35 delivery fee. So, I bite my tongue, fixed my original design and went with it.

Now, call me mean but when they delivered my wood and crown molding (for the bathroom). I had them place it in the garage right were my Hubby parks his car every night. I figured that it would make him more motivated to cut the wood then if I placed it somewhere else. It worked too! The next day we cut the pieces and moved them to the back yard shop.

Cut and ready to go!

The next step is assebley and filling with dirty. I’ll let you know how that goes.

Also, in total I paid $1.70/linear FT for the cedar and $1.28/linear FT for the crown molding. With 80 FT of cedar and 32 FT of crowning plus free delivery I paid $178.

Enjoy!