Building your own Raised Garden Bed

I've had the opportunity to start a garden here at the warrior transition battalion so I wanted to share what I've learned at this point and show you guys some pictures even though I'm just getting started on this project.

My goal is that you can take away knowledge and ideas to start your own gardens. It's an amazing feeling to see something that you planted grow and flourish.

The Garden

The first step is to prepare an area to have a garden in. If you live in an area (like I do) that doesn't have ideal soil then you can make a raised garden bed. It's a project that doesn't require amazing carpentry skills to accomplish in a fairly short time. Let me show you a few of the raised gardening beds that are being used where I live.

Child -sized to let kids garden without crawling all over their plants.




I have attached a couple links. The first one is to Bonnie plants that features an instruction video and a downloadable PDF file of instructions. I have also added in links for Lowe's and Home Depot to allow you to price out the equipment that you are going to need prior to going to the store.

Super Easy 4 x 8 Raised Bed

Lowe's

Home Depot

Setting up your Garden Bed

For the easiest way to calculate how many of what to plant, I suggest setting up a square foot garden. All you need for this is some string, small nails, a hammer, and a measuring tape.

Starting at one corner of your raised garden bed and working your way around, place a nail every twelve inches.
NOTE: Make sure to leave enough nail out of the wood to wrap string  around each nail. 

It's a bit difficult to explain exactly how to wrap the string but I've included pictures that make it much easier to comprehend. It is much easier to do this step with a friend.
















Now I've included a link to Gardener's Supply Company because they have some very cool resources that made planning my garden so much easier. It's called Kitchen Garden Planner and you simply enter how big your garden is and it shows each square foot on the screen. Then, it has a wide selection of fruits, vegetables, and herbs to choose from. When you drag one to a square it will tell you how many to plant in a square foot and provide all the directions to have the best chance of a successful growing season. There is also an option to email it to yourself so you can print out a handy guide later. I hope to hear back that this site was as helpful to you as it was to me.

Kitchen Garden Planner


It's Planting Time

It's still a bit cool outside for a couple of the things that I wanted to plant so I decided to start my Zinnia seeds inside my room. I kept a plastic cover over them until most of them sprouted to help create a green house effect. I've included a couple pictures off my little baby plants but I'm sure it'll still be a few weeks till they are ready to be transplanted to my garden outdoors.





















The rest of my plants, I'll be purchasing as starters that you can buy at the store or keep it local and look for what you need at your nearby farmer's market.

When it came to purchasing simple garden tools, I chose to go to the dollar store to keep down the costs in my budget and was still quite pleased with the quality I got for the price.



Troubleshooting

If you can't afford a raised garden bed or you don't have a yard to be able to plant in. I would suggest you search around for a community garden bed. There is a growing trend in a lot of cities to provide free space to allow people to grow and share the produce that comes from it.

Another option to consider is using mason jars to make your own indoor herb garden.

For those of you that already have a garden going this spring, tell me what you are growing that you are the most excited about in the comments below.

Good luck guys and happy planting!!

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