New Addition to My Garden

So my husband and I have been looking for ways to expand our gardening area. We have a little back yard and space is at a premium. Especially space where there is actual sunlight for at least 6 hours. So I was on Pinterest and came across this amazing looking tiered planting bed. It was a kit and the price was a bit more than my budget could handle plus it was in cedar (I think), well it wasn't in redwood, which is what all our other planting beds are made of. I'm obsessive compulsive about everything matching.  So I showed it to my husband. He said 'if you can draw the plans up for me then I can build it'. Well after staring at the website I realize that it is just a series of boxes stacked on top of each other and joined at the back corner by screwing the boxes into a 2 x 4 so I scribbled a bit and Tada!

It was easier than we thought - and doesn't it look amazing :)

Your going to need 8 - 2" x 8" x 8' and 1 - 2" x 4" x 8' (we were only able to find the 2" x 8" boards at Lowes)  and a box of 2 5/8" Deck Screws

For tools you will need something to cut the boards with (we used a circular saw) 

and an electric drill (to do the pre-drill so that the boards won't split when putting in the screws) 

and electric screw driver

You cut the boards thus:

5 of the boards need to be cut in half (exactly as possible) these are the fronts and backs of each of the boxes you will be building

The sides are as follows:

You need:

2 - 48"

2 - 36"

2 - 28"

2 - 19"

2 - 10"

We were able to combine the 36" board with the 10" and the 28" boards with the 19" so all of the above only used 3 boards.

Finally cut the 2 x 4 into 2 approximately 40" lengths - there will be a bit left over.

Then comes assembly:

We put the boards in so that the sides went butt up against the ends.  That way we knew that the width of the box would be a uniform 4'.   We pre-drilled all the holes (2 in each board) and then assembled with the deck screws.

After assembling the boxes we started stacking them just one at a time with the two 2" x 4"'s in the back corner with the narrow part of the 2" x 4" against the back wall and the wide part against the side.   Again we pre-drilled and then screwed it together.  Continue the stacking and screwing to complete the assembly.  A nice plus in doing it this way is that it squared itself as we screwed it into the 2" x 4" board.

Finally, it takes a lot of dirt to fill this so we put our heavy clay soil in the back of the unit until it was about 1/2 full being careful not to get any in the front part then we bought garden soil (I don't remember the brand) and it took about 6 - 3 cubic ft bags to fill it.

Those are strawberries your looking at and the second to the top opening has beets planted.  I plan on putting herbs in the top.  You may be noticing too our next project stacked just to the left of our box.  Making a potato tower next.  Wooohoo!  Enjoy!