Monday, November 23, 2020

DIY Raised Garden Bed

November 23, 2020 Pratik Bandagale

Sharing a full how-to for making your own raised garden bed at home + stay tuned for a printable PDF how-to.

Hi friends! Happy Thanksgiving week! I hope it’s off to a great start. I’m beginning the cooking festivities this evening and am oddly looking forward to it. My nana gave me her chocolate pie recipe (the only thing the Pilot really wants for Thanksgiving) and I can’t wait to make it. It probably won’t be the same but should still be pretty dang delicious.

DIY Raised Garden Bed

For today’s post, I wanted to share the new garden the Pilot built! We used to have two orange trees on the side of our yard, but had them removed. They were filled with horrible stickers and produced sour oranges that no one ate. (Except for that one time Liv and our cousin Sara made orange juice for me.. and I had to drink it lol. I pretty much did a crazy sour-faced dance around the backyard before spitting it out.) Anyway, that part of the yard has been bare and we had big dreams to put something in its spot.

We also had irrigation from the trees, so I thought it would be cool to put a raised garden bed to complement our flat lettuce patch. I was browsing options online, and was getting ready to click, “Add to cart,” when the Pilot walked by and said, “What are you doing? I can totally make that.”

Wait, what???

So, the Pilot is insanely smart – I mean, he flies multiple aircraft NBD – but I had no clue he was handy like this, too. (He did build the famous bird condo, so I should have known.) I was pretty surprised when I saw him on the porch with slabs of wood and a circular saw, doing his thing. It was like my Chip and Jojo dream come true hahaha.

Before I knew it, we had a giant garden bed, complete with a mesh screen on two sides (we’re waiting until summer and the scorching hot sun is beating down to fully cover it), water protection, and attached to irrigation!

Isn’t it a beaut???

A bed this size would have easily been $300-400 online. He got the supplies at Lowe’s for $150. (The soil was another story. We ended up needing 30 cubic feet!)

Pin this for later!

Raised Garden Bed Free Printable Plan

I asked him if he’d put together a tutorial in case anyone wants to replicate this at home! He’s currently creating a printable PDF instruction guide that will be ready later this week. I’ll add the link here and shout it out when it’s finished! <– he’s making sure it’s absolutely perfect for ya and easy to follow. I totally get that for many cities it’s a little too late to plant, but it’s been perfect weather in Tucson.

We have onions, carrots, beets, broccoli, cauliflower, red pepper, banana pepper, and tomatoes on the way! Also, in our little lettuce patch we have a ton of Swiss chard, plus kale, arugula, spinach, and romaine growing like crazy. The guinea pigs might be the most stoked out of anyone in the family.