This is the year that I attempt to garden. Also known as the year I will probably kill more plants simultaneously than I have ever done in the past. I apologize to these brave and doomed plants ahead of time.
That said, we have finally managed to assemble the shell of a raised garden bed. We are the least handy people that you could possibly know, so we bought these handy dandy assemble-itself raised bed corners with a built-in soaker hose plug-in in one corner.
All you have to do is buy untreated lumber and insert it into the slots. However, no one mentioned that untreated lumber actually measures wider than treated lumber because it doesn’t shrink in production from being treated with chemicals. So the boards, instead of being smaller than the slots they were supposed to go into, were actually the exact SAME SIZE, meaning they wouldn’t go in the slots. We had to borrow a table saw and Christian spent the kids’ naptime on Saturday slicing tiny chunks off the ends of each board. I was scared he was going to cut of his fingers, but fortunately all he did was give everyone cedar allergies (it’s cedar wood).
In the end, we have this awesome raised bed, all ready for me to call someone off Craigslist and get some compost and dirt delivered!
The cardboard at the bottom is one layer of newspaper and one layer of cardboard.
Theoretically, this will form a weed barrier that will eventually decompose enough for the plants to break through if they need to grow further downward, while still preventing weeds from re-growing underneath.
Step 1: build raised bed = complete!
Step 2: get dirt
Step 3: get plants
Any advice/suggestions on growing things and making a garden for a first-timer with a black thumb?
How do you plan to protect against termites with untreated lumber? Are termites a problem where you live?
We used cedar wood, which is a little more expensive but is a natural pest repellent (like how cedar chips are used to repel moths). Supposedly termites can’t handle it. To cut down on the cost, we stacked two 6 inch boards to make the 12 inch sides, rather than having to special order 12 inch boards.
Carrots are really easy although they take a long time to grow. Tomatoes are pretty easy and love the summer heat, peppers too. We grew jelly bean tomatoes last summer and my son loved them! He ate most of them off the plant! Love the raised bed, cedar has withstood far better than regular lumber we have used in our raised beds.
We just made ours this past weekend! Check out Northaven gardens. They’re super helpful! Royal and 75.