I can’t wait for the warm weather, sunny skies and green grass!  We are excited to plant a garden at our new place. I do NOT have a green thumb…unless growing weeds counts, then I totally rock it, so this is a risky adventure.  I can’t even keep a succulent alive – that’s a cactus, how do you kill a cactus!  

The garden, like most of our projects started out with an idea and my need to for something different, not the typical norm. Go figure! Like all the others, this quickly escalated into a full scale, hardcore project. We could plant a simple garden with freshly tilled dirt in the backyard and be on our way. Sounds fairly easy and quick, right? That just doesn’t have enough curb appeal in that for this girl. I obsess over raised gardens. I love the look, the texture and who can complain about not having to bend over and fewer weeds!  How could you go wrong?

I drool over stock tank gardens…..so pretty!  They look amazing! I had everyone convinced that these were what we going to use for our garden. Imagine my disappointment when I realized how much they would cost. As a girl of options and ideas, no need to panic! Plan B, we will build our own galvanized beds. Problem solved! 

For the frames we used fence posts cut to the height of the metal, securing them to the inside corners of each piece.

We moved the pieces outside and assembled them in the yard, screwing the ends and sides together. Looking good!

 

After all three were assembled we placed them where we wanted them in the yard. Being true to my personality, we “rearranged” them just a few times. Yep, that’s right we moved them around until they looked evenly spaced and aligned with the fence posts. OCD – yes! Whose with me?! 

Originally, we bought trim pieces to put on each corner to cover up any sharp edges. Looking at the final product we opted to not use the trim for the corners. I really like the unfinished look they have and there really aren’t any sharp edges on the corners. Believe it or not, perfection is not the goal.

 

These suckers are huge and will take a lot to fill. We decided to use the lasagna or layering method to fill them. The bottom layer is recyclable packing papers leftover from our move, topped with as much yard waste (sticks, leaves, grass clippings, etc.) as we could find. As a cheap filler we opted for sand and layered this on top of the yard waste. Now we need some dirt. This could be the most expensive part of the project, making me anxious and nervous. Too late to turn back now! I lucked out and scored a FREE pickup load of dirt. It’s not enough to fill all of them, but hey, it still counts! We used dirt, garden topsoil and a compost mix to finish them off.

For extra reinforcement, we added rebar posts to each side. After they are filled we will frame the tops with fence panels cut to fit. I’m kind of digging them without the top frame.

They look great!

Fingers crossed that we actually get something to grow!  Good thing we have a local farmers market as a back up. 🙂