Raised Beds

In our neighborhood, there are small plots of land across from each yard that the city owns. When David first moved in, he noticed that some of our neighbors had claimed the land and made gardens. David had big plans for what he wanted to do with the space.

Empty plot of land across from our house.

He wanted to make four raised beds. The second year he was in the house, David tackled the project. First he had to clear out all of the weeds that had taken over. Then he built the beds from scratch with some pressure treated wood. Later he realized that Home Depot sells kits which would have been much easier, but at least by building them himself he was able to make the beds the exact size he wanted. David built four walls and reinforced the corners with four inch posts.

Frames of the boxes.

David added weed barrier and newspaper to the bottom of the boxes in hopes that it would save us some trouble later on.

Laying weed barrier. 

After the boxes were created, we realized that they were quite large and it was going to take a lot of dirt to fill them.

All of the dirt needed to fill the boxes. 

Car riding low from the weight. 

Never-ending hole. 

 Eventually, David finished all four boxes and filled them up with dirt.

Boxes completed. 

In addition to the boxes needing a lot of dirt, it was going to take a lot of flowers to fill them which would require time and money. The first two years the boxes were pretty much just growing weeds. The weed barrier did not work out too well because lots of plants got through.


David added some slate in between the boxes for aesthetics and to keep the weeds at bay. This has somewhat worked. Weeds grow like crazy in between the boxes but not so much on the areas where there is slate.

No plants to fill the boxes :/

It wasn't until this year that we actually planted stuff in the boxes. I tried planting some old flower seeds in pots, grew them on my roof and transplanted them in the boxes. I'm not sure why, but they grew as vines. Maybe I was just growing weeds. So I ended up ripping these out.

Transplanting flowers.

In July, we bought some dying flowers from Home Depot on a big discount. I would recommend this as we were able to nurse the flowers back to life and now have nice, plentiful perennials for a fraction of the cost.

Flowers all planted. 

Home Depot flowers in the back and vines in the front. 

One challenge with the boxes is that they attract young children. We would notice children sitting on the boxes and jumping from box to box. I would come home from work and see my flowers crushed in the shape of a foot print. I guess I have turned into one of those old curmudgeons that yells at kids to stay off their lawn...except I am too shy to do that. So instead, I had David put up a small fence to deter kids which seemed to do the trick. 

Purple flowers have come back to life. 

After ripping out the vines, we replaced them with some small red and yellow flowers. The flowers have really taken off. The back boxes don't have as many flowers, but hopefully next year we can fill them up. One step at a time!

End of summer, flowers flourishing. 

Although this land is not technically ours, I don't think anyone would mind us taking an over-grown jungle and making it into a nice garden for all passerby's to enjoy.