- Hey, I'm Caleb with YouCanMakeThisToo, and I'm making a huge raised garden bed for my mother-in-law. If you're interested in
plans and a shopping list for this project,
there'll be a link below, as well as the information for my Patreon contest
prize for this month. Anyway, stick with me, and I'll show you how you can make this too. Getting an outdoor structure
like this to come out square takes a very different approach than the projects I normally do. I started by making a triangle with three stakes connected by string that was six, eight, and 10 feet. Basically, a double-sized 3-4-5 triangle. The theory was, that by staking that out with the lines tight, I would have a right triangle with a square corner. Then I pulled measurements
along the legs of those triangle that were the size of the
garden, 16 feet and 10 feet. I did some math on the calculator that's always in my pocket, my math teacher didn't
see that one coming, and the corner-to-corner
length was correct. Then I could fish for the last corner. I just kept moving my stake until the measurement was right
from the other three stakes. Now I have the location
for the four corner posts. I pulled tape between the two front posts, and marked where all of the
other front posts will be, then marked the location
for the center post for the back wall. I ran string all the way
around the perimeter, to follow with some marking paint. What I forgot to do in all this was place some batter boards, which are stakes beyond the perimeter, that I could later pull string across to see the corners and
the whole perimeter. It's a bit hard to see,
but everywhere a post goes, I made a perpendicular line. With all the posts marked out, it's time to start digging the holes. Fortunately, the only thing
I needed to do by hand was remove the sod. My mother-in-law's boyfriend brought his small tractor
with an auger over, and drilled out the holes. That saved a whole lot of labor. If you rent an auger to
do something like this, make sure to remove the sod, because otherwise,
it'll clog up the auger, and they just don't cut as well. It started raining, so I
didn't get much footage of setting the posts. It's pretty repetitive and simple, though. Put a post in the hole, make sure that it's in the right place, add concrete, nail some bracing
so it's level, and move on. This is where putting out those batter boards
earlier would've helped. I could've pulled a string from those and used that to get everything in line. I'm sure some of you are noticing that I didn't mix the concrete. According to QUIKRETE, that's just fine, so long as you add water afterwards, everything will cure, and
that's what I did off-camera. I didn't forget the water. I don't have an awesome spinning laser to give me a level line, so I pulled string and used line levels to mark level-ish lines. The ground elevation in this spot changed more than I thought. I should've measured that. It turns out there was about a 12-inch difference across the garden. I wanted the top of the beds to be level, but I had two constraints. I didn't want to excavate a bunch of dirt from where the ground was
higher to make it flat, and the height of the
post in the lowest corner. If that post had been taller, I would've just raised
the height of the beds on that side, but it wasn't. So in lieu of ripping out that post and buying a longer one and resetting it, we decided the top of the beds would split the difference
between the ground and what was actually level. Enough of that, more building. With the bed height marked, I started adding cleats to the posts. These are nailed to the posts with ring-shank galvanized nails. These are what I'll
attach the bed sides to. Because the line I have for
the bed is the top of it, I'm gonna start at the
top and work my way down, setting the boards in place. My first tip on this is
get a friend to help. But if, like me, you don't have friends, then you can drive a
temporary screw into the post to hold it in place, that let
me go screw in the other side, then come back and cut the board to length and screw it in place. Moral of the story, friends are best, but if you've at least got a good screw, you're gonna be all right. When I got to the bottom board, the ground kinda got in
the way in some places. So I just dug it out a bit, and then set that board in place. And so it goes like that all
the way around the perimeter, except for where the doors will be. I added some 2x4s to
the outside of the wall, as reinforcement, and also
kinda dress everything up. Setting the interior
walls of the garden beds was a little tougher. I screwed a temporary support into the end of the
board to help hold it up, kinda like that good screw earlier, while I screwed it to the post, and then rescrewed it into the
support where it was level. Then I added some bracing
across the top of everything, to get the spacing from
the outside wall correct. The rest of the boards went pretty quick, and then the temporary
support could be replaced with the permanent one that will tie into the next wall. I learned a bit from the first one, so when I did the other side,
I set up the bracing first, and I even had some screws
preset to hold the board so I wouldn't be fumbling
with starting screws. And this went faster. Adding the third wall was really quick. I just screwed it into the
end post of the short walls, and that's how far I made it on my first trip to work on this. Building the center square garden was pretty similar to
the other interior wall, but a lot easier because they're shorter. Before moving any further, I'm at a point where I can flush cut everything that I left long earlier. And the reciprocating saw made
really quick work of that. The cap for the bed sides is just a 2x4 that gets screwed down, and there's really not
anything else to say about it. It's time to move to the top. I'm going to call these
pieces the top rail. I used quick clamps to hold it up, and then toenail screws
into it to hold it in place. These will support the top plate and give me something to
secure the fencing to. With the top rail in place, I know how tall the posts need to be, and now I can trim them to length, and again, the SAWZALL
is perfect for this. Now for what I'm calling the top plate. It's hard to measure the distance, because the mitered corners are gonna stick out past the posts. So I mitered one side and marked in place, then once that piece is
cut, I screw it into place, and repeat that around the top. The last pieces to go on, I messed up. My mother-in-law wants
bird netting on the top, and these are the pieces
that will support that. I actually meant for the
angle to be the other way, but I accidentally cut these too short and didn't have time to get more lumber, and she said she liked it this way better, so onward I went. The last thing I finished
on my second trip was getting everything sealed. My airless sprayer made
pretty quick work of that. My last trip, there is
not much left to do. Between trips, my mother-in-law lined the sides of the beds with plastic, brought in gravel for the walkway, and to fill some of
the bottom of the beds, 'cause these are deeper
than they need to be, and filled the rest of the
beds with raised garden mix. I started with the fence around the top. Fortunately, this stuff cuts
pretty easy with wire cutters, because I forgot to
bring my angle grinder. Then I just laid the
cut pieces into place, and hammered fence staples
in to hold it all in place. The other big project for the last trip is getting the doors made and hung. I cut my pieces to length
with the circular saw, which I've done for the whole
project, and lay them out. I'm using hardware to assemble the doors and help keep them from sagging. They don't really hold
things very tight, though, so I also toenailed some
long screws into the joints to really pull it together. Then I added the decking
on the back of the door, so they have some depth. I'm only putting a screw in the middle, so that way the boards
can move with the weather. After some paint, I add
some fencing to the door. These doors will be pushed
open from the inside, so that's why I installed
the decking inside the frame the way I did, and also
went with a tighter wire. I think that will help
these stand up better to being pushed, kicked, and bumped open. Now the doors just need to be hung. I install three hinges on each door, those annoying garden gate latch things, so the doors will stay shut, and a pull handle on the
outside for easier opening. The downside of the garden latches is they can lock you inside. So I hook a chain onto them,
run it over the top plate, and hooked it to a screw
eye inside of the garden. This provides a way to open
the latch from the inside. The last thing is adding
the bird netting on top. There's not really anything special, I just unrolled it and
used one of those staplers that gives you really bad hand cramps to staple all of the netting in place, and then cut off the excess. And with that, this thing
just needs some plants. If you're interested in
building something like this, don't forget that I have plans,
as well as a shopping list available for you on my website, that'll help you get started. Anyway, I hope you learned something, or were at least entertained. Until next time, make
time to make something.
