DIY Raised Garden Beds

Nathaniel and I weren’t originally planning on building raised garden beds. We had planned to just add compost to the existing area of where we wanted our garden to be, and plant accordingly. But in the recent weeks, we had noticed a ton of dirt mounds all around our property which made us believe we may just have a few gophers that would love to gobble up our future veggies. So, one of the ways around this problem are raised garden beds with a tough wire screen at the bottom to keep any critters out.

First thing we did (Nathaniel actually) was plan out the layout of the beds. We came up with this cool design. (The striped area is the walking path).

Then, wood needed to be bought. We chose Red Wood Dog Ear Fence posts from Home Depot because it was inexpensive and of good quality.

Since we had planned to plant straight into the ground, our garden area was not prepped for the raised garden bed. We had to remove most of the dirt and compost from the area and level it. (Rory was a big helper with the digging portion).

While Nathaniel was doing the manual labor 🙂 I worked on cutting the wood to size and making the joints and supports for the beds. I got to use the Miter Saw and drill! Yayyy for power tools!

After most of the wood was cut, we started assembling the beds.

After a few hours, we finally got both beds built.

Next on on our list was to add metal lath to the bottom. This will keep all the gophers out, and any other critter that decides to munch on our veggies.

And finally, we shoveled and mixed 4 yards of compost and dirt into the beds.

Once all the dirt was added, we laid out the veggies and herbs and started planting!

And now after 3 weekends, here’s our finished product! It is absolutely the most rewarding thing to see an idea become a reality. And what makes this even better, is it will continue to change and grow! We are so excited!