The Garden Build

It all began back in 2012 when we both had an interest in utilizing some unused space at the rear of our garage. The location was ideal for a vegetable garden, but what to build there? It didn’t need to be large, since it would also be a test to see if we actually utilize it as we should.

We chose to build an L-shaped raised bed that worked well for us for a few years, but the wheels kept turning on what would look better and produce more yield. Not to mention the area around the garden got saturated during heavy rains, making it a muddy, swampy mess to manage.

Fast forward to 2015; it was time to rebuild. We needed some more space and it was time to deal with the water puddling.

We started by taking out the old L-shaped bed and removing the grass in our 600-square-foot area. We used some old yard stakes and twine to map out the layout of the new garden.

To make it easier, we decided to make the 3 main beds 3 foot x 12 foot and place each bed 3 feet from the next. Simple math! Everything was divisible by 3. We would also have one long bed which will be the total length of 3 beds plus the gaps: 15 feet x 3 feet, and 1 bed with a 4 foot section cut out in the middle by the garage window. That makes 154 linear feet of wood (or 13 1 inch x 6 inch 12 foot boards) with only 2 inches left over. You could easily make the long bed 1 inch longer on each side and you would have no scrape, but that threw my OCD out of wack!

We added 1 inch x 1 inch posts cut 12 inches (the depth of each bed) to add support in the corners and once along each long section of the beds (2 along the 15 foot bed). That means we needed a total of 34 1 inch x 1 inch 12 inch posts (408 total feet).

A box of deck screws and we were ready to assemble.

Once the garden beds were set in their final resting place, it was time to bring in the crushed limestone and a few inches of pea gravel. You are never going to stop weeds from growing in the gravel, but adding the limestone will allow you to pull the weeds with ease.

Before adding the 12 inches of organic garden soil we needed, we picked up 54 feet of half-inch electrical conduit along with 108 2-hole straps to secure the conduit to the inside of the beds. This will be used later to attach metal hoops to make a garden tunnel during spring and fall.

Lastly, we had 7 cubic yards of organic garden soil delivered and added to the beds.

Short of planting in the spring, we were done!

The additional garden space has provided us years of delicious produce and continues to be an experiment bed for Kim’s horticulture degree.

Follow us through this upcoming season at Kinsleylife.com/GardenLife

Additional Photographs