At this point we know what and how much we want to grow (even if only eventually), and we have determined the best places and layout for out garden beds. Now it’s time to build them.
At a minimum, you will need a digging fork, spade, metal rake, and wheelbarrow to move the sod you remove. To build raised beds, you will need at least a measuring tape, saw, and hammer.
Additionally, a hand trowel makes knocking soil away from the bottom of sod pieces easier. A kneeling pad and/or garden stool also relieve some of the aches and pains of the more tedious parts of the process. A bucket, preferably tin can be used for moving stones and smaller organic matter pulled from the cleaned beds.
A 10” miter saw will make better cuts than a handheld circular saw. A nail gun will save you the exertion of nailing and a cordless drill or screw gun will spare you twisting a screwdriver by hand. At my age, power tools are my favorite toys.
Watch for sales, particularly at the beginning and the end of the season. I bought my wheelbarrow for $35 at a spring sale at a big box store. It’s heavy duty vinyl and has made it through five seasons already with considerable use each year. Plus, I used it to move several yards of sand and limestone I used in constructing our flagstone walkway which is one-hundred and twenty feet long by thirty inches wide. It’s going to see a lot of use this year as well, especially if we make the walk extension we’re planning.
Shop around to find who has the best prices on wood and mending brackets. Don’t skimp when it comes to nails and screws as this is an item where you get what you pay for. Inexpensive nails bend like prairie grass in a tornado and cheap screws strip out before driven halfway. Also, you don’t necessarily need galvanized metal items, either nails or brackets. Stainless steel brackets will last about as long as the wooden boards and are much cheaper.
To begin constructing your beds, measure carefully and stake out the outside points of the four corners. With your digging fork or spade, cut through the sod around the perimeter about an inch outside the desired size to keep from having grass under the wooden frames. Marking the square or rectangle off first will help you keep it the right shape and size. Cut out the sod in blocks with your digging fork and spade, turning them over as you go. Keep the pieces of reasonable size as you will need to pick them up to knock the excess dirt from them. Chuck the sod pieces into your wheelbarrow for removal or relocation. I used the pieces to sod the area under my elm, which was nothing but mud when we purchased the house. You can also compost them by piling them upside down.
Measuring out the beds. 
Digging out the rectangle. 
Hauling off the sod after breaking the dirt from the clods. 
Filling in the completed, staked beds.
There are sod cutters you can rent. A manual one looks and operates a lot like an ox drawn plow. Except there’s no oxen, just you pushing it. The blade is a foot wide and cuts about two inches below the surface. If you want the exercise, rent one of these. I know. I used one to clear the path for that walkway I mentioned. Motorized slicers cut a little deeper and twice as wide. They are heavy and look like mini Zambonis. They are much easier to use, unless your lawn is extremely wet and soggy from a lot of rain. In that case, the wheels of these heavy machines will dig into your grass and bog down. This is why I used a manual cutter. It had rained for a week before I could start on the project.
If you’re doing a lot of beds and can afford renting a machine, use an motorized one. Otherwise, be prepared for a good workout.
Once you have dug up the sod, break the chunks of soil from the matted grass roots to keep as much dirt in the bed as possible. Next, till the soil at least six inches deep even if you’re going to build a raised bed. If you don’t have an electric tiller, use your digging fork to turn and chop up chunks. Alternatively, you can purchase and use a broadfork to loosen the soil. I highly recommend using an electric tiller, even if you need to borrow or rent one. Make a pass in all four directions to really dig and loosen the soil. If you are digging by hand, double dig, which is exactly what it sounds like. Dig once and break up the clumps, move that soil aside and dig again and break up the clumps. Then return and level the soil in the bed with the back of the metal rake. This ensures a good, deep dig and loosening of the soil.
If you’re using ground level beds, fill in the void left from removing the sod with a good garden mix at this point. If you’re building raised beds, you’ll fill it in after building and placing the frame.
Garden mix is two parts topsoil to one part compost. Please don’t spend a gazillion dollars buying a pallet of bags from a big box store. Check with your local garden centers and greenhouses. You will find a nearby source of soil for half the price of big box stores and they will deliver it by the yard. I bought five yards a year minimum for the first three years of building my garden beds. I paid $32 a yard for garden mix as I just described. A big box store wanted $50 a yard just for plain topsoil and their delivery charges were higher.
I saved money and supported a local, mom and pop shop. All I had to do was a little online searching and make a phone call. This is also who I bought my sand and gravel for the walkway from. Bulk prices and free delivery after the first one of the year. Smart shopping equals smarter buying.
If you already have compost, mix it in with or in place of the garden mix. The more organic matter added the better. Compost is my only fertilizer. We don’t do chemicals.
Note, if you are building a platform bed or container garden, you’ll need to use a basic potting mix or add soil lighteners like vermiculite, peat moss, and even sand to keep the garden mix from compacting in the contained space. It will compact in a raised bed, though it’s not much of a problem as the roots can spread further down into the soil we tilled earlier.
As noted in parts 1 and 2 of this series, I built my garden over time. Year one, I had only six ground level beds. In the second year, I added three ground level beds and raised the first three. Ground level beds are the easiest, but have a few problems, most notably weed and grass incursion. Miss one week of weeding and it might look like you never cleared the space. They are also prone to flooding. Raised beds drain better and warm up faster in the spring. You still get weeds, but keeping them under control is easier. You also don’t need to bend over as far, which becomes more of a bonus the older you get.
What height you want to make them is up to you. As I mentioned before, my late friend built his three feet high so as not to bend over at all. I initially wanted to make mine a foot deep. Budget constraints made me reconsider and arrive at eight inches if I wanted to be able to afford seeds to put into the beds. Oddly, an eight-inch high bed four feet by eight feet required approximately one yard of garden mix to fill. Seems like it was meant to be.
For each bed I purchased two eight-foot long pieces of 2×8 for the long sides and two six-foot long pieces for the short sides. I cut these six-foot pieces down to four foot three inches in length. The extra three inches was to account for the thickness of the two side pieces. Note you can purchase studs, which are not quite eight feet long, generally 2x4s. These are for use as wall studs and take into account the thickness of top and bottom plates. Don’t buy that size. Buy the eight-foot long lumber.
NEVER use pressure treated wood. This is fine for your deck. It is not good for your garden as the chemicals will leach into the soil. The green in the wood was arsenic in the mix intended to kill termites, etc. The industry has been phasing its use out, though. It doesn’t matter. Just use untreated lumber.
When I say my beds are eight by four, I mean the internal dimensions. The shorter side pieces are attached to the ends of the eight foot pieces so that I have eight feet by four feet of useful space within each bed. The outer dimensions end up being eight-foot three inches by four-foot three inches, because the boards themselves are an inch and a half thick on each side.
I didn’t discard the leftover parts of the short pieces. I split those into long wedges that I used to hold the frames in place while I filled them and allow them to settle. I left them in place for two to three seasons.
You can simply nail or screw the short pieces into the ends of the long pieces. This works perfectly well, although nails have a tendency to pull out if the wood warps. A more secure and permanent method is to use 90 degree mending brackets, aka angle iron. Use two per corner to screw and effectively clamp the pieces together.
Once the frames are constructed and in place, fill the beds an inch or so above the top of the wood to allow for settling. As the season progresses and rain does its thing, the soil level will eventually drop below the level of the wood. Fill it in next year with compost or more garden mix, when you loosen the soil with a broadfork and roto-tiller, which we’ll talk about in part 6.
A platform garden is an oversized garden box on legs. I would make it at least twelve inches deep to give the roots plenty of soil to hold onto to and draw nutrients from. At the start of each season, mix in as much compost as you can to enrich the soil for the year. The bottom of the box is CDX plywood or a resin composite material. Each will need good reinforcement with 2x4s, no more than twenty-four inches apart to prevent bowing. Drill a few weep holes at regular intervals. Four or five in a four by four box are sufficient for letting excess water drain out. Line the bottom with one or two layers of plastic screening to keep the soil from leaching out with the excess water.
For container gardens, use no less than twelve-inch pots with drainage holes in the bottom for beans and peppers. Tomatoes and other larger plants will require twenty-four inch pots. This is to ensure enough soil and moisture for the roots and to provide some stability in the rain and wind.
Both platform and container gardens will require twice as much watering, including twice daily in hot, dry weather. Keep an eye on the soil. The leaves may show wilting on a hot day even in plants sown directly into the soil. This is normal and does not mean the plant is suffering. It’s simply how nature protects itself in the heat. If the leaves do not bounce back in the evening hours, water the plant. In any event, check the soil a couple of inches deep for dampness. Water when the soil dries out below an inch for small pots and two inches for large pots.
Clay pots dry out faster than plastic pots, although keep the soil cooler. If you live in an extremely hot climate, use clay pots to keep from burning the roots. Shade the pots as best you can with smaller plants in front of larger ones and decorative edging in front of those smaller pots whenever possible to slow their drying. Be prepared to water morning and night at the height of the season. Water until the pot drains.
Please note, if you’re container gardening on a balcony, set your pots in large, utility trays to collect the drainage. Your neighbors will not appreciate the shower from your draining pots. Voice of experience here; twenty years later, still sorry. Your plants will absorb the drainage overnight or during the day, keeping them more evenly hydrated.
Here in the Midwest my garden needs on average an inch of water a week. In August, especially when the weather is dry, I’ll increase the amount to an inch and a half, possibly two. In the southern states, you’ll water more heavily throughout the summer. Let your plants be your guide. As mentioned above, they will droop in the heat of the day. If they don’t bounce back during the early part of the night, water. Keep a record of how many inches were required for future reference.
In very arid climates like the southwest, you will need to conserve water through heavy mulching. I recommend three inches of straw across the entire bed and growing lettuces and small root crops in shady areas. Otherwise, most of the water you put out will be lost to evaporation from the soil. Irrigation systems, especially drip types, beneath the mulch will save you time and expense. Taking your arid climate garden to the next level, you can create a waffle-board style garden, which is a number of shallow, square depressions in the soil in which you put your plants. It looks like a giant, dirt waffle. The bowl shaped hollows will collect water, which might otherwise have run off across flat soil.
A constant showering style sprinkler can deliver the desired amount of water in thirty minutes at normal municipal pressures. Use a rain gauge to measure any rainfall and make up the shortfall by watering on a weekly basis. Don’t worry about exceeding an inch a week. Worry about not delivering that inch. This is an area where you can safely err on the excess side. Pick a day of the week to water. If it rains that day or the day before, wait another day and water enough to be sure your garden received an inch, if the rain wasn’t sufficient. Skip watering for the week, if you received enough rain.
Wrinkle: Several trees shield my shade garden. Unless a real tempest blows through, it won’t receive as much rain as the garden beds. I still need to check the soil for dampness and water when it feels dry to an inch depth. Watch your shady areas.
For both raised and ground level beds, you can set up irrigation systems if you have the budget and inclination. Currently, I just put the sprinkler out and set a timer on my phone to move it. I have a meter I will install this year that will automatically shut off after delivering the correct amount of water.
The most effective and most expensive is a drip system, which metes water out slowly to each plant or plant cluster. This is fine for tomatoes and peppers, plants with a single stem. Carrots, potatoes, and the like need a broader delivery of water. For these, you can install sprinklers, either pop-up or pole mounted. Personally I would use pole mounted so I can reconfigure the setup for each season. Note a drip system is excellent for container gardens.
The only irrigation system I have in place runs to part of my butterfly garden. Our house sits on a spring apparently. Even now as I write this, when it’s below zero out and two feet of snow cover the ground, my sump pump is filling enough to run a several times a day. In summer, when the ground warms up it will run several times an hour, whether it has rained or not. Rather than lose this water, once the chance of freezing is over I hook the sump output to perforated piping I installed in the butterfly garden. When the pump runs, it delivers clean groundwater to my Asiatic lilies, Shasta daisies, liatris. and coneflowers.
In addition to the beds, you’ll want to set up your compost pile. If you don’t want to have a pile, invest in a tumbler or other composter. These pay for themselves in the nutrients you put back into your soil. You can start it by inverting the sod you removed for the beds. Throw on all the weeds and other yard debris you collect. Add the ashes from your grill and sawdust from your projects. Add the parts of the plants you don’t eat like apple cores and broccoli stalks after harvesting the heads. Add any store bought organic items to the pile during the year, like banana peels and those lemons you let go bad because you never made that recipe you found online (winking emoji). Just keep piling it on. Throw in some dirt as well. It contains and attracts beneficial microbes and other creepy crawlies that help break the plant matter down.
Composting is a subject unto itself and books on the process abound. All I will say here is: put it in the sun and keep it wet, though not sodden. Maybe completely turn it over once a month. Otherwise, let nature do its thing. In the spring, use what hasn’t fully broken down as the bottom of the next pile and incorporate the finished humus into your beds.
In the winter, when it’s too cold to compost, I maintain a worm box in my basement greenhouse. This is nothing more than two medium sized storage tubs with lids. One tub gets several small holes drilled in the bottom and the sides and is then set inside the other. Be sure at least one row of holes is above the top of the second tub so air can get inside the first. Line the first with a layer on newspaper and add several inches of garden soil. Wet it down without drenching it and bury some kitchen waste into the dirt. Use only fruit and vegetable waste, no animal fats or bones. Keep it the covers on the tubs except when feeding your worms. A couple of days after setting it up add a container or two of redworms. I bought two, giving me sixty worms to start. I saw numerous baby worms inside the other day.
Once a week, add the collected kitchen waste to the bin by simply spreading it out on top. The worms will come up for it. If the soil starts to look dry, add some water. You will usually see several worms every time you open it to feed them. A small worm box like this can actually support hundreds, if not over a thousand worms, depending upon how much food you have for them. I keep kitchen waste in plastic bags in the basement refrigerator just to be sure I have plenty of rotting organic matter for them to munch on. In the late spring, when the ground has warmed up, I’ll dig a hole or two and release the worms into the garden.
Coffee grounds are a different story when it comes to composting. Brewing removes much of the acidity. However, I do not add them to my compost pile except once or twice a week out of an abundance of caution and because I have a lot of them (drink a few cups every day). I do spread grounds I’ve collected during the winter over the beds in spring to work them in with the finished compost for the added organic matter. Any acidity added this way is minimal. What I will do during the year is spread them out over the lawn for a bit of fertilizer and because they allegedly repel ants and other undesirable insects. By the way, use a mulching mower so you don’t need to fertilize your lawn.
Collecting grounds may seem obsessive and I wouldn’t expect you to jump right into doing so. (You can always get used grounds from Starbucks for free anyway.) One of our main goals, however, is zero waste. Our long-range plans include a number of waste digesters, such as the Green Cone, which can break down animal fats, bones, and cat litter. Zero waste output.
Big Question: Are you renting or do you own the lot? If you rent, ask your landlord about putting in a garden. For all you know, they may be excited by the idea. A nice garden can add value to a property. Plus, it’s a good indication you intend to continue renting from them and good tenants can be hard to find. If you own the property, consider holding back on a huge garden if you have moving relatively soon on your mind.
Lastly, if you’re leasing space in a community garden, follow their guidelines. You may still be able to build raised beds and install sprinklers. Just ask first. At this point our garden is physically ready and it’s time to start growing things, which we’ll talk about in the next installment.
The Little Farm in Town 