Garden Boxes

Materials needed (per garden box):

1 4"x4"x10' post
3 2"x12"x8' boards
(if sloped) 2 2"x6"x8' boards
~4 dozen long outdoor wood screws (3.5")
landscape fabric
3-way mix of Ulite, Peat Moss, and Topsoil)

Stefani wanted garden boxes for years, and we finally got some for our backyard in our old house the season just before we moved.  So all we grew in the first ones was bindweed.

So, she was motivated to get me on a new set of boxes for this house.  The trouble was that the old ones cost around $250 for 3 4'x4' vinyl boxes, the same stuff that these fences in the area are made from.  We didn't want to shell out that much for just 32 square feet of gardening space.  So, we decided to go on the cheap and make our own boxes.

I saw how some of the other garden boxes in the neighborhood were constructed, and some were holding up better than others.  I chose a design that was cheap but hopefully durable to last 10-15 years.  we purchased one 4x4x10' for each box, cut into 4 pieces.  This made it so that each corner post would be in the ground at least 1.5' (with 12" of garden box showing), and 2' in some parts (with 6" of garden box showing because of the slope of the yard).  To the tops of these we screwed 2x12's, overlapping across the 4x4 post (see diagram for rough details), and alternating screw placement for strength.

Since we put these onto a slope, we also added one more level of 2x6's where the slope of the land would cause the bottoms of the 2x12's to rise above the ground level (see diagram).

After putting the boxes together, I leveled them (just using a level and shovel.  I ended up not only digging the post holes but also trenching between them to keep the sides off the ground while leveling between corners.  Once level, I just filled in the holes with dirt (no sense cementing these in, as they're 10-15yr boxes, right?)

After grading the yard around them, we laid down landscape fabric as a weed barrier, fitted and stapled to the sides of the box so that it will not tear when we filled them.   Then we filled the boxes with the 3-part mix recommended by the folks at our local IFA: Ulite, peat moss, and topsoil.  I think this time around we went a little heavy on the Ulite, and we were a little skimpy on the peat moss.  But, we had a bumper crop of tomatoes, got out of it some zucchini (which made some decent bread, below), and got some Komote Tops (sort of a leaf-only plant for soups from the Philippines) to grow well.  Our pumpkins and squash failed because of some bugs and because we were a little late getting the drip system hooked up to the box.  All in all, it was a project well worth doing, and we'll probably put a few more of these in next year.