Create a bed to enhance your garden

With a DIY raised garden bed that maintains the right soil mix, achieving an abundance of home- grown vegetables is easier than you might think.

If you want to grow your own vegetables this season, building a raised garden box is the perfect spring project. With a few supplies, tools, and easy-to-follow instructions, you’ll be slicing your own home-grown tomatoes before you know it.

Upland gardens can be filled with a mix of topsoil, planting mix and compost and provide a great way to control soil quality. This deep, rich soil mix allows you to grow more vegetables than is possible in the same area of regular garden soil.

Step 1 – Gather your supplies. To create a 4 x 4-foot planting box, you will need:
✓ Two 16-foot redwood or cedar boards (reclaimed wood is a good sustainable choice)
✓ 2 x 2 lumber 6 feet
✓ Galvanized screws
✓ Cutting saw
✓ Power drills and bits
✓ Tape measure
✓ Tongs

Step 2 – Cut eight 4-foot lengths of redwood and four 11⁄2-foot lengths of 2×2 lumber. Cut into 2×2 pieces, then cut one end of each of the four pieces at a 45-degree angle. The angled ends help hold the finished planter box in place.

Step 3 – Place the two cedar planks together and grab one of the 2×2 pieces of lumber you just cut.

Step 4 – Drill two pilot holes in the treated lumber one at each end of the piece. Do not drill holes in the redwood board yet.

Step 5 – Attach the treated wood to the redwood board using a drill and galvanized screws. Drive a screw through the pilot hole to prevent the wood from splitting. Repeat steps 4 and 5 for the remaining boards.

Step 6 – Screw a 2×2 piece of lumber to one end of the cedar board giving you four sides of the box, then screw the four sides of the box together.

Once everything is secured together, you will have a 2×2 piece of lumber for each corner of the box. At this point, each 2×2 is secured to only one side of the redwood board. To secure all the sides together, drill more pilot holes and screw galvanized screws through the 2x2s into the opposing redwood boards.

Tip: If you don’t want the screws to be visible on the outside of the box, screw the four sides together from the inside.

The angled ends of the 2×2 are used to keep the box stable when placed on the ground.

Now you can move the grow box to a sunny location where your vegetables can grow and fill it with a mixture of topsoil, growing mix and compost.