The Garden Bed

Our plants are getting bigger and bigger which means we needed to get to work on our raised garden bed. The bed will be located on the side of our house and will measure 19 ft by 37 inches and 12 inches high. The plan had been to build it last week but it turns out its hard to get long pieces of wood when you don't have a truck. Mike's friend Brian has access to a truck and agreed to help us this last weekend. First though we needed some dirt. I priced buying soil for our bed but that was way out of our budget so I turned to Craigslist. A guy named Joe who called himself Joe Dirt had what we wanted and Mike and Brian headed out to get a load of dirt. When they got back they unloaded it.

Here you can see the area where we will be putting the bed and the pile of dirt.

Today despite the cold, windy weather we were determined to get it built. Katie has to be bundled up of course but she was ready to work.

We got started by putting together L shaped pieces in the garage since it was a little less windy there.

Once they were done we moved them outside. I had picked 20 ft long board but apparently you cant drive with those hanging out the back of the truck so they were cut to 19 ft and the extra foot will be used to join the lengths together.

Mike had to get creative here because the screws were not long enough, eventually they went in at an angle.

Once it was together I laid down newspaper which is supposed to be a weed barrier. Mike had to follow along and put dirt on it right away to keep it from blowing away. 

Katie watched, giving her support. 

After the newspaper it was time to move dirt, a lot of dirt.

At about the half way point we added a bag of garden soil.

Then I put down some egg shells, ash from the fireplace and fertilizer then of course more dirt.

Once it was fill of all the dirt (somehow we ended up with just enough) we added two more bags of garden soil.

The finished product.

A little close up.