Planting a Raised Garden Bed

I have had gardens in the past. In fact, every year since we moved to Indiana until I had Kayla I had a garden. Isaac loved gardening with me. Here is a post kicking way back showing Isaac with some of our garden treasures.

That year I had Kayla I was too tired to do a garden. But now she is at the age where I knew she would love gardening with me. So I decided to do raised cedar beds. I started out small with only 4 cedar boxes. I figured if I set myself up right even if I had to take a break for a year the beds could sit empty and still look halfway decent in our yard. Or I could always do a fresh cut flower garden the next year. We will see. The key is I wanted flexibility. Doesn’t it look pretty?

I followed Ana White’s plans for her Cedar Raised Beds. And this is what I learned – I am not a builder. I can repurpose with the best of them but building something from scratch kicks my butt. BUT I AM DETERMINED to grow in this area. I finally understood how when I tell you something “is so easy and takes 20 minutes” why it takes you 4 hours to do it. When you don’t do it for a living there is a huge learning curve. So while it takes Ana 20 minutes to build these it took me about 4 hours. So after the first one, I literally cried! But I put on my big girl panties and started again. I will say the 4th box probably took me only an hour to complete. And I felt such a huge sense of accomplishment when all four were done. Anywho…

I got all of my cedar fence posts at Lowes. They were $1.95 each at mine. So each box cost about $11 in wood.

If you decide to make these I highly suggest using a nail gun to tack a few nails in to temporarily hold them in place while you drill the screws in. It was my saving grace.

How to Make a Raised Bed Garden

Step 1: Rent a rototiller to loosen up the soil and get the ground level. Our Ace Hardware rents them for about $26 for 4 hours. My honey helped put my garden in for Mother’s Day. He even had a good attitude – bonus!

Step 2: Lay down some black landscape cloth to keep any weeds from growing through. Make sure to overlap the cloth.

Step 3. Edge your garden in cedar posts.

Step 4: Measure your boxes to make sure they are evenly spaced. Then add pea gravel or bark dust around the boxes and then add some garden compost mix to the boxes. (Note: I recommend using a little larger of a shovel for this…giggle!)

Step 5: Grab a little garden beauty girl (see above picture) and plant your fruits and vegetables. We added a little Whitney Farms Organic Plant Food to each bed as well.