Before going to detailed post lets see how the square box for the garden has been done. We left some space in the deep slope down (not to touch neighbor fence) and started right after our grass bed. Also left some space (2 feet) in the side to go and take care of plants so plan and leave some space all over the bed.
Materials Needed For Making the Raised Garden Bed
The 8X2 feet untreated woods – You can cut them at Home depot/Lowe’s to 4X4 and bring it home, but if you have tools you can cut them at home (for the first two beds they did cutting in front of the house)
Supporting Sticks – It comes in a pack of 6, will add more pictures soon.
Construction Screws – Long Screws to drill
Drainage Rocks
Garden Soil
Top Soil
Compost
Drilling Machine
Fabric Sheet to control weeds
Eye protecting glasses while drilling
Garden gloves to work on
They cut them in to two planks each and drilled to make 4X4 perfect square box.
You have to dig a bit to place them perfectly. This is the main thing in the slope gardening. So use dummy planks as a leveler and start digging three sides. The deep slope needs a slight dig mark and not much.
and it continues in the below picture as well.
Before placing the square box in the slope they added a one side support/base to the extreme slope so that it levels up. This is the second main thing to note. Do check it out in the below picture.
Once done with support board, place the square bed and connect them both with support sticks( need to drill here with construction screws). So for the bottom garden bed we added two layers/rows of 4X4 box, like shown below. Also can you see the supporting sticks at the corner of two row beds it was implemented all over the inner sides of bed to make sure it aligns with the other bed properly.
Raised Garden Bed Filling / Soil Composition
After placing the beds and drilling, add the fabric sheet so to prevent weeds from the ground. And then add the drainage rocks (they are heavy in weight) and we added rocks to fill 2 inch height (almost covered the first box).
Later add the garden soil for 4X4X2 size box we added 6-7 bags I believe.
Add compost to it, mix it up. Later add top soil on top. So the first bed is ready, now they started working on the second most thing. Same 2 rows of 4X4X2 box and here no extra wooden plank support is needed like they did in the deep slope.
In the above picture placing the First box for the second 4X4X2 bed…
Fixed the Second box in the below picture, added support sticks then filled with soil…make sure to add support sticks after placing the second one and drill at more places so they won’t move out of alignment.
Top soil
The final outcome 🙂 notice those supporting sticks placed between first and second bed.
Now what :-), have got reasonable yields in my first garden experience. This year just started something indoor. And few pictures below are the yields I got last year. Yup I started everything from seed and even lettuce :-).
Later we made the third bed, here is the picture of it.
We added some trellis and this model we got it from google images (the trellis sticks are just for $10 for each bed excluding screws).
First covered one bed later for the second one too…can you see the slight visible third garden bed on your right?
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