Hello Lovelies,

I’m so damn excited to finally have our raised garden bed built! I’ve wanted one for quite some time now and finally got around to doing it. Our soil is very poor where we are and mainly solid clay. After two years of failed in ground attempts, opting for a raised garden bed was the best option. Plus, we moved the garden to another more desirable part of the yard. Our prior garden was in the direct Texan sun for about 12hrs a day and burned everything planted. Now, as the sun sets, a shadow is cast from the house leaving about 6-8 hours of direct sunlight. 

We built the bed 4ft x 8 ft out of untreated Cedar wood. Cedar is a good insect repellant. 

You will Need:

• Six 8′ long 6″ wide boards of any untreated wood (cedar is the more pricey option)
• Two 2″x 2″ x 8′ boards

Lowes offers wood cutting services to any size. So no need for expensive tools. Yay!

Cut the following measurements:

• Leave four 8′ x 6″ boards for your long sides. 2 boards on each side so that your long side walls are 12″ high. 
• Cut two of those same boards to 4′ lengths for the shortest sides and 12″ high. 
• Cut the 2″ x 2″ 8′ boards in 4′ lengths. 
• Cut one of the 2″ x 2″ 4′ boards into 1′ pieces. These will be your corner pieces. One piece per corner. 

Take one 2″ x 2″ x 1′ piece, one 4′ board and one 8′ board and screw or nail together making two holes in each board. This will strengthen the corners. Do this to the other three corners to create a box. 

Now do the second level, drilling into each corner 2″ x 2″ x 1′ piece. Now you have a 12″ high 4′ x 8′ raised bed. 

Take two 4′ 2″x 2″ boards and screw in the very middle to make two 4′ x 4′ wide sections. This will stabilize the bed and help prevent bulging sides. 

This took the following to fill 3/4 of the way up:

• 22 bags of soil
• 1 bag pebbles
• 1 bag mulch

Total cost with tax was less than  $75 to build. We chose untreated cedar wood and cut all of the wood for free. We had screws already and chose screws because we are still renting our home.  We can move this later. 

Total build time about 30 minutes with an electric drill. 

We found this to be a much better way to do a raised bed.  A lot of the online kits we looked at were extremely expensive and were flimsy looking or didn’t get rave reviews for being durable. This way, we built ourselves, built it strong, and learned a new skill.