Hey everyone! I apologize for not posting blogs as much lately. This is a super busy time of year for us because my birthday, Avery’s birthday and Josh’s birthday are all within 20 days! We finished everything for Avery’s 3rd birthday party this weekend so the next blog I do will be all about her party! 🙂 Anyways! A couple months ago I decided I wanted to do a garden for the first time this spring. So I have been doing lots of research, talking to our local garden store and getting lots of advice from my Grandpa who is GREAT at gardening! I’m so excited to enjoy all that comes from having our own fruit and vegetable garden. Before Spring comes I needed to make raised beds for my seeds to start. So we went to Lowe’s and got all the supplies! (not pictured here were the 17 bags of soil to fill it and netting) To build the raised beds we needed the wood for the width and length, wood for the shelf seat on top, scrap wood for support, 6 PVC pipes cut a little taller than the depth of the raised bed, any kind of bendable pipes to fit inside the PVC pipes, animal netting, 2 1/2 in deck screws, soil and compost.

My raised bed is 4 feet by 8 feet and Avery’s little raised bed is 2 feet by 2 feet. I forgot to take a photo of each step but basically we attached all 4 sides together with 2 1/2 in deck screws (first pre-drilling the holes to avoid splitting). And then adding scrap wood flush with the top of the bed for extra support. And then we added 2 by 4’s on the top to make it like a little seat for when I’m gardening. Avery LOVED helping with every step of the way! The photo with the soil bags inside the bed is where we stopped on day 1. 

Then a couple days later we finished the last side of Avery’s seat on her raised bed, put cardboard on top of the grass and then filled the raised beds with topsoil. And of course it only filled up about half way haha. But Avery had a blast digging in her little garden!

The next day we went back to Lowe’s and got the rest of the soil that we needed. So i filled it up and mixed in compost on the top. Then I put in the PVC pipes and smaller pipes that fit inside of it. And then I cut the animal netting to fit over the top of it. I had to kind of jimmy rig clamps for the animal netting so I hammered 2 nails in the wood and then put zip ties through the animal netting and tightened it around the nails. Then in order to get it off I just pinch the zip tie and it gives me a little room to slide it off the nails. I did this in 10 spots to ensure no little animals get inside my garden.

And there you have it! Kind of a long and in depth blog today but I wanted to walk you through how we built our raised beds. Avery loves going outside and digging and burying things it’s so cute! Now I just need it to stay warm outside and Spring to come so I can plant my seeds!!