When we moved into our house the fenced-in backyard was in rough shape. There were two large bare areas each about the size of a 4×8 sheet of plywood. I spent one afternoon working garden soil into the areas and reseeded the yard. I watered the yard each day for the next 3 weeks and nothing was growing in these bare areas; not even weeds. My wife and I brainstormed our options. We both hypothesized that the area must have been contaminated by construction materials so whatever we did it we would want a little separation.  Therefore we came up with the idea of creating a 5×9 raised flower bed.

5×9 raised flower bed w/o flowers

Building the flower bed wasn’t hard with the help of my wife to hold the frame up while I attached the boards together. I bought 3 – 2x10x10 pressure treated boards. I cut 1 board in half and cut off 12″ from the other two. Used 3-1/2″ exterior wood screws to secure the corners of the boards. Once all four corners were secure I used scraps of 2x4s approx 16″ long to brace the corners and keep everything square. Additionally the braces double to up to accommodate for the uneven ground thus keeping the top of the boards level.

Finished Product

Raised Flower Bed with Flowers

Recent Picture (08 July 2013)

Picture taken 08 July 2013 – We have squirrels and chipmunks/ground squirrels so I added the corn platform.

Outtake

Our spring weather has made certain projects challenging.