DIY: Raised Garden Bed

I have visions of a yard filled with bounties of the land, but about 3 inches below the grass there are so many rocks it's impossible to dig a hole and grow plants.  (Not to mention I'm far from being an expert gardener). Fortunately, there is a pretty simple solution for the rock problem:  raised garden beds.

There are books, websites, blogs and magazine that explain the best way to garden with raised beds, but I figured it couldn't be that hard to figure out and I was itching to plant my zucchini.

We had few pieces of wood from our attic that was a little too beat up to be used for furniture making, and some random pieces of wood the previous homeowner left in the basement & under the deck.  I pieced them together with brackets to form boxes and filled up the boxes with different types of soil.  Pretty darn easy and the veggies are loving the rock-free dirt.  It probably would have helped if we dug up the grass, but it we didn't have the right tools and it was a pain in the butt.

April 2010:

July 2010:

It worked! All I had to do was water the dirt everyday (raised beds dry out very quickly). Now I have free, fresh veggies waiting for me when I get home every night.

Right now in the bed we have: swiss chard, peppers, cherry tomatoes, green beans, hot peppers, fennel, zucchini & summer squash.