A home for my baby plants!
I have a very small backyard and when we bought the house the entire yard was covered in flagstone. Boring! I figured we didn't need to waste time with plain old grass and thought we should just make the entire backyard all garden. So to start with I began watching the amount of sunlight that is in the backyard to get an idea of which areas would be partial shade and which would be full sun. I was able to get the gist of the lighting but I also had to keep in mind that my tree out back had no leaves on it yet and I would just have to wait and see how much shade it gave in the summer. I enlisted the help of my parents once again. They came out and Pop measured out the yard and Mom walked the yard for lighting and we put together a plan. We were going to make 5 raised beds total. The beds are about 10 inches high. Two of the beds would be 4 feet by 4 feet. The other three beds would be 4 feet by 10 feet. This would provide me with a grand total of 152 square feet of garden space. Yowsa! As far as the lumber measurements, types of wood and bed assembly goes, I really can't be of much help as Pop took care of all of that. He came over and assembled them in back yard. He had to get the beds level and anchor them into the flagstone.
I have a very small backyard and when we bought the house the entire yard was covered in flagstone. Boring! I figured we didn't need to waste time with plain old grass and thought we should just make the entire backyard all garden. So to start with I began watching the amount of sunlight that is in the backyard to get an idea of which areas would be partial shade and which would be full sun. I was able to get the gist of the lighting but I also had to keep in mind that my tree out back had no leaves on it yet and I would just have to wait and see how much shade it gave in the summer. I enlisted the help of my parents once again. They came out and Pop measured out the yard and Mom walked the yard for lighting and we put together a plan. We were going to make 5 raised beds total. The beds are about 10 inches high. Two of the beds would be 4 feet by 4 feet. The other three beds would be 4 feet by 10 feet. This would provide me with a grand total of 152 square feet of garden space. Yowsa! As far as the lumber measurements, types of wood and bed assembly goes, I really can't be of much help as Pop took care of all of that. He came over and assembled them in back yard. He had to get the beds level and anchor them into the flagstone.
Water proofing...
After Pop did the assembly, I proceeded with my homework for the afternoon. I waterproofed the wood with Thompson's Water Sealer. I used a transparent Sequoia Red tint. We sealed the inside and the outside of the beds. After the sealer dried, I stapled landscaping weed barrier onto the inside bottoms of the beds. We did this to help keep weeds out and to keep the dirt in. Next came the back breaking labor- enter Tony, my strong man to help fill these beds with soil.
After Pop did the assembly, I proceeded with my homework for the afternoon. I waterproofed the wood with Thompson's Water Sealer. I used a transparent Sequoia Red tint. We sealed the inside and the outside of the beds. After the sealer dried, I stapled landscaping weed barrier onto the inside bottoms of the beds. We did this to help keep weeds out and to keep the dirt in. Next came the back breaking labor- enter Tony, my strong man to help fill these beds with soil.
Dirt, Dirt and more Dirt....
Pop did the math and figured we would need 5 cubic yards of dirt to fill the beds. We called around to a couple of places and did some price comparison which definitely saved us money. Our dirt was a blend of compost and potting soil. We had tarps placed on the driveway awaiting some dump truck action. It seemed like a MOUNTAIN of dirt was dropped there. My toddler son loved the dump truck by the way. We got our shovels and our wheelbarrow and got busy. My husband and I had the length of our toddlers nap time to get the job done. We functioned like a well oiled machine and got all of the soil moved into beds just in time for the rain. That same day I mixed a small 2.5 lb bag of bone meal into the soil. Tony and I ended up changing the smaller bed placement at the last minute to allow for more space in the yard.
Pop did the math and figured we would need 5 cubic yards of dirt to fill the beds. We called around to a couple of places and did some price comparison which definitely saved us money. Our dirt was a blend of compost and potting soil. We had tarps placed on the driveway awaiting some dump truck action. It seemed like a MOUNTAIN of dirt was dropped there. My toddler son loved the dump truck by the way. We got our shovels and our wheelbarrow and got busy. My husband and I had the length of our toddlers nap time to get the job done. We functioned like a well oiled machine and got all of the soil moved into beds just in time for the rain. That same day I mixed a small 2.5 lb bag of bone meal into the soil. Tony and I ended up changing the smaller bed placement at the last minute to allow for more space in the yard.