How To Build Raised Garden Beds

hey guys welcome back today i'm gonna be replacing the garden beds we have now with these beautiful raised garden beds so stick around and i'll show you guys how to do this and a few tips and tricks on what i'm improving from other designs that i've seen as well now before i get started i need to rip out all of the old garden beds and all the gravel around them that we've put in and these garden beds we've had for a couple years now even though they're pressure treated here in the south when pressure treated is up against the ground constantly getting wet or up against the dirt the moisture will rot it out and the bugs destroy it really quickly so we're gonna have to rip this out all of the dirt that's in the garden beds right now is really fertile we've been treating that and adding manure and all sorts of stuff into the soil keeping it rich each year so i'm going to save that for some of the dirt that i'm putting back in these taller garden beds later but all the gravel i'm going to be piling up i can use that on a different project i'll save that for another time now i'll also be transplanting any plants that i want to keep for the next garden bed and i've got a lot of asparagus i have some mint as well as a rosemary bush i'm going to be keeping those so if you have anything like that make sure you take that out before you start digging everything up now the garden beds we're going to be building has basically the same amount of space as our three old garden beds but it's actually more condensed so it's going to give us close to three feet on both sides of more yard which is really nice and this is also great compact garden style for someone to build if they have a small yard or just don't want to take up much room in their yard now this garden bed isn't massive so basically you're not going to have a ton of stockpile that you can put in the freezer or keep fresh throughout the year it's mainly just then you can have something fresh that you can eat throughout the summer time so if you want to have enough that you can stockpile it and have fresh veggies all year round from your garden you're going to need to have a lot bigger of an area now that i have a nice level area prepped for the garden beds i'm just going to start cutting all the two by fours ahead of time and i'll lay them out on the ground where they're going to be installed that way i can go in and assemble each panel individually i have all the boards cut ready to go now for the design this is the drawing my wife gave me right here we have a 12 foot wide section these two sides will be 10 feet wide now to equal that 12 foot wide over here we'll have 3 foot 3 foot that equals 6 plus 6 that's 12. now these other two sides those will also be 6 foot this section right here will be three foot wide three foot wide and this end will be four foot wide all the way across now this edge right here this is a railroad type border that we're going to be putting around and then gravel on the inside to make it look really nice i'll show you guys in my next video next week how to use railroad ties and landscaping like that now i've got all the pieces cut out i'm going to lay them out in the panels where they're supposed to go on this design and it's really simple design really you have a two by four going across the top and the bottom of each panel and then you have a 18 inch long two by four going vertically on the ends and then i'm putting it at the most every three feet across so you really need to have support on the metal roofing that you're putting in here so i'm only going to be spanning the distance of three feet before i add another vertical support to help support that roofing now it is important to make sure that you divide this up evenly you don't want the supports off at all because this is going to be showing it's the 2x4 frame is going to be what is on the outside what everybody sees so if it's a little bit less than three foot or a little bit over as long as it's consistent across the board it's going to look great on each panel [Music] now in a second i'm going to show you close up how to attach all of this together and basically all of this is held together by the vertical two by fours so i'm going to take each one of these vertical two by fours and i'm gonna toenail two screws on the top and bottom before i go to attach it it's much easier now well i can hold the two by four steady by itself so i'll put two three inch long screws toenail down into the two by four and that's what's going to be screwing the top and bottom two by fours together [Music] [Music] i'll start by attaching the two two by fours that go on the ends once i have those down everything's attached i'm gonna come back through and split up the remaining space evenly about every three feet or so [Music] the 2x4 frame is built now the next step will be attaching the metal sheeting on the inside of this frame now this adds a ton of strength to the frame itself so i'm going to be putting a metal roofing screw these have special gaskets to keep moisture and leaks from going through the metal into the wood on the other side i'm going to be putting one of these screws every eight or ten inches or so and i'm also going to be screwing the vertical sections of those two by fours as well that really ties everything together and keeps everything really solid now to cut through the metal you can use many different types of power tools they make special tools for cutting and metal roofing but you could also use like a sawzall with a metal cutting blade i used that angle grinder with a cut off blade and that worked really well cuts through it super fast but if you don't have power tools you can also use tin snips it works fine takes a little bit longer but it definitely does the job now on the corners to tie the panels together i use three inch long deck screws and those are just going straight through the two by fours into the other panel and i used about four screws per corner that seems to hold really well and it's not going anywhere [Music] now you could stop right here i've seen a lot of designs where they stop with this and that's basically it they just fill it up with dirt but i feel like it's not going to be quite strong enough i'm going to improve it in quite a few ways first i'm going to add a rail across the top this is just a 1 by 6 or 1 by 8 deck board and this adds a lot of strength for that top two by four where the dirt is gonna be pushing out and trying to bow that two by four this adds a ton of strength from it bowing outwards so i'm just gonna be screwing this down straight to the two by four below it and this also ties the corners in really well too and helps hold those together [Music] next i'm going to be adding supports at the longest sections of this raised bed i'm going to be supporting the top and bottom with the 2x4 going across to the opposite side this equals out the pressure that both sides are pushing outward from the dirt the weight of that pushing out and it supports both sides keeps the bottom from kicking out as well as the top so i'm going to be adding one of those supports on either side where the 10 foot section is right about in the middle of that 10 foot stretch and then i'm also going to be adding two supports to break up that 12 foot section on the back side so this really will hold a ton that bottom board is going to be covered up with dirt it may rot out eventually but it definitely will hold the dirt in for a long time now that top 2x4 isn't going to be covered up with dirt it's going to last long time not going to rot out anytime soon if the bottom one does give out eventually you could always use like a metal stake like a three foot long section of rebar hammer that down into the ground right up against that bottom two by four just enough to where it catches the two by four and supports it from pushing out any farther and that should be plenty [Music] do [Music] before i start filling in the dirt i have a few more things i need to do i'm gonna first make sure that everything's level i can check from corner to corner that this thing looks nice it's all even and i can shave off the dirt and level it if i need to right now before i get any farther along i'm also because i have the leftover wood from the old uh raised beds that i have already pressure treated wood that's partially rotted out and a little buggy i'm actually going to use that as a barrier underneath the raised bed from the dirt insulating it from all that moisture and probably keeping it a little drier than it normally would so i'm going to use that wood because i already have it it probably wouldn't be worthwhile if you have to buy the wood because it is so expensive right now but using up something that's not going to be usable for anything else seems like a pretty good idea [Music] do [Music] do now another improvement i haven't seen anybody else do with their race beds is actually sealing up the corners and this will really prevent that wood from rotting out any wood that's exposed to moisture and exposed to dirt will automatically attract bugs and it will rot out over time and i just want to try to prevent that for as long as possible and to do this i'm going to be using ice and water shield this is meant for roofing normally you'll put it around the border of your roof where it's in colder climates if water backs up or ice backs up it will eventually start leaking but if you put this down it adds another moisture barrier underneath where the shingles are and on one side it's a very rubbery texture with a plastic over top maybe even tar and on the back side it's very sticky it'll just basically adhere to anything and it works really well with this metal roofing so i'm just going to put this on all the corners and seal this up just a little bit more and keep all the moisture away from the outside 2x4 frame now the frame and everything's finally done the next step is just filling up this garden bed and to do this i'm going to be using my leftover firewood that i didn't burn up this year that's too buggy to save for next year by the time next year comes around this wood is basically going to be nothing but sawdust and i might as well use it for my garden beds so this will slowly decompose and speed the garden for a couple years at least so this will really add a lot of nutrients to the soil so i'm gonna fill up the garden bed probably about six inches to ten inches of firewood just covering the bottom and using up all that old wood now if you don't have firewood laying around if you have any sticks or shrubs or bushes any clippings that you have from the garden leaves that makes a great base that slowly decomposes over time and helps feed the garden now that also helps with one of the main problems with these raised beds is it takes so much dirt to fill them up so anything that you can put in there that's going to decompose turn into soil or dirt over time is really nice so now that i have a base in there i'm gonna fill in all the dirt that i took out of the old garden beds i'm gonna be putting that down now another thing about these raised beds is it's too tall for a wheelbarrow to reach in and dump dirt into the raised bed so it's a little annoying having to shovel dirt into the wheelbarrow then having to shovel it back from the wheelbarrow into the raised bed so you actually see sometimes i'm actually using a trash can to move the dirt it's a little easier than trying to lift the wheelbarrow in or trying to shovel it back in from the wheelbarrow something to think about but once it's done it's done you don't have to think about it and it looks really nice to have these but just remember that before you get started with this project it takes a ton of dirt to fill up and it's a lot of work but it looks so nice once it's finished and you can see here it's just about filled up now and we're almost ready to start planting in this garden [Music] [Music] now before we plant the garden in here we're going to take some compost cow manure and add this to the garden and kind of spread this throughout the soil on the top to help feed the plants and give it a little boost before we start now we're also going to be digging the holes around the plants a little bit larger than they should be and then we're going to be filling that in with some potting soil and some garden soil to help give those small plants a boost before they hit the soil we put into this garden bed now you can see already my asparagus plants are shooting up they love this new garden bed it gives them a lot more room to have roots down below the surface than the shorter garden bed we had before this is really nice we can keep it fertilized we can keep it controlled a lot better grass clippings when you mow aren't flying into the garden planting seeds there it really will just just be a lot more manageable than the more ground level garden that we had before now we're just going to get these plants into the garden and get them all set ready to grow and i'll show you guys what this looks like when we're all finished [Music] [Music] do now we're just about finished with the garden bed it turned out beautiful and we're actually really excited about this it should work really well for us so i'm going to show you guys what this looks like all finished after everything's done i still need to build a trellis on this side for green beans and we're going to also have some cucumbers there as well so i'll be building a trellis in probably next couple videos or so next week i'm actually going to be posting a video on how to use railroad ties in landscaping we're using this as a border along our new race beds to have some slate chips on the inside keep the grass away from the gravel we have on the inside it looks really nice here so i'll show you guys how to do that in my next video and the week following that i'm actually going to be doing a retaining wall using railroad ties i've got a bank that needs to be pushed back a little farther and i'll be putting in a nice railroad tie retaining wall so if you're interested in that stay tuned that's in a couple weeks don't forget to hit the like button on this video and subscribe if you have not already to the channel also i can't wait to hear from you guys down in the comment section down below let me know what you think thanks guys so much for watching i'll see you in the next one

Channel: SimonSaysDIY

Views: 2,212,672

Keywords: Raised Garden Beds, DIY raised garden beds, how to build raised veggie garden, How to build Garden Beds, How to build raised Garden Beds, Veggie garden bed, How to build metal raised garden bed, Metal roofing garden bed, Corrugated metal, Corrugated metal raised garden bed, how to build a Corrugated metal garden bed, how to build a raised garden bed with Corrugated metal, how to build a nice raised garden bed, DIY Corrugated metal garden bed, metal raised garden bed, garden bed

Id: fThviH71CaI

Length: 16min 52sec (1012 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 24 2021