Building Some Raised Beds

This weekend was absolutely beautiful in Atlanta, mid to low sixties and not a cloud in the sky! A perfect time to get some work done in the (soon to be) garden. On Saturday I finally took my neighbors' (Damon and Diana) invitation to come over and check out their small backyard garden. Their setup is quite simple, a few small beds planted right in the ground and surrounded by some bricks or boards. Damon mentioned that he really wanted to expand, but since they now have two young kids they really didn't have time, I have a feeling once their oldest gets a little older they may put him to work making some food. The best part of the visit was the information I got out of Damon. Nothing genius really but lots of good insights on shadows from the house (both our houses face south and so we have long shadows in our backyard right now. In the summer, however, the sun won't put anywhere near as big a shadow on the yards and we have more space to garden in). Diana also had some pointers on some edible wild plants that grow near here and was also incredibly excited about possibly sharing a chicken coup if I decided to do that. Having neighbors who garden is a great boon for me. I don't have much experience in the garden, having only tended the peppers in the garden when I was maybe nine or ten, and to have people who can help answer questions is great. It also helps that our gardens are right next to each other so they have experience with the local conditions. More proof that gardens build community!

Saturday was also the day to pick up all the supplies for my big project of the weekend, building some raised garden beds. I was basing my design on the design found in "The Urban Homestead." Its simply a wooden perimeter that holds in some dirt on top of the ground. On the plus side this helps keep down weeds, cuts down on the amount of digging into the tough Georgia clay and lets you design your soil. On the downside it means I have to use my (very rusty) carpentry skills and pay for the lumber.

The process for building these was pretty simple. I started off with a bunch of lumber, to be exact a single 4"x4"x6' piece of lumber and six 2"x8"x8' boards.

The original plans had this being made into one bed that was 16" tall. After talking with Damon over the fence we decided that I didn't really need all of that height if I was going to be using a mixture of local and store bought dirt since I could break up the ground under the bed and the plants could grow into that. I then cut two of the 2x8s into two 4' pieces for the end. The 4x4 I cut into 8 equal pieces that were 9" long.

Now its just a matter of putting the things together. The first bed I started by screwing the long sides onto the 4x4s first (drilling pilot holes first).

I then tried to put the short ends on the long ends to complete the bed and ran into some trouble. First off I discovered its hard to get enough pressure on the drill the screw 3" screws into pressure treated lumber by pushing sideways and I couldn't stand the bed on its end because I'm only 6' tall. Eventually, with a little twisting of

Unfortunately at this point I had to run back to the store to get more screws. I got the second bed about 3/4 of the way done before I gave up on account of lack of daylight. Building these I learned some important things:
1) Lumber is heavy
2) The corded drill Travis has sucks
3) A 4'x8' bed is going to need a lot of dirt
4) 8x2 = 16 < 20 which is how many screws there are in a package.

Some time this week I'm hoping to cut down some of the tall grass in the backyard where I want to put these then work on building the soil for them. I'm planning on a mixture of the local dirt from under the kudzu (I hear that the kudzu really helps the soil) and some of the organic soil I picked up from the big box store. After that I'm going to put a layer of mulch (that is, dead leaves) over the whole thing and start getting ready for the growing season.