Raised Beds

Yesterday my Dad and I built our raised beds!  I am thrilled to have this checked off my list.  It was a nice project to be able to complete with my Dad.  My Dad has always been surrounded by a household of women where most of the time he does these projects for us not with us.  So I know he thought I was just using him for the free labor which I fully appreciated but I also appreciated the time on the project together. 

We built three 4x12 beds that are 8 inches deep.  We built them in my "workshop" (aka garage) on the floor and had really high tech equipment such as a large outdoor garbage can and hand saw to cut the 2x4 corner stabilizers.  All joking aside it took a little bit of time but was a easy project.

I bought eight 1x8x12 untreated cedar boards, two of which were cut to 4 foot lengths for the edges.  Luckily the man at the lumber store was feeling nice and since we only had 4 cuts did this for us.  We also bought a 2x4 to make the corner supports.  We cut the 2x4 into eight inch lengths since we bought 1x8 boards only to find that a 1x8 is technically really .75x7.5, whoops.  The extra half inch on our corner supports will be used the anchor the beds in the ground, so it worked out.

Once we had the 2x4 cut we attached the end pieces to the corner supports first and then set up all the boards attaching the long sides to the end pieces.  We had an assembly line set up where I drilled all the pilot holes and my Dad followed with the screws.  I also had the chance to put a few screws in as I am constantly wanting to learn how to be more handy.  The beds look great and next on the garden expansion to do list is to turn over all the sod and till up the ground.

I'd also like for you to notice that on March 30th when it should be in the fifties it was in the high 30s and snowing as we were building our raised beds.  It just felt off to be getting ready for gardening as it snows.