The Square Foot Garden Raised Bed

I apologize now for the picture quality...my camera is on the fritz!

I've mentioned before I'm trying to be more self sufficient in the suburbs. One of my spring goals was to develop a better vegetable garden plan. A great way to do this in a limited amount of space is Square Foot Gardening. The most common type of bed in square foot gardening is a 4'X4' grid. I chose to make ours "portable" to where we can move into the shed after our growing season is over. I did this for two reasons, one we already have a few raised beds in the yard already so I didn't want to clutter things, and two because we may be putting the house on the market next year so I don't want to make anything permanent.

So here's how I did it....and you can too!

Materials:

2- 8ft  long 2x8 boards (you can actually use 2x6's if you prefer)

*you don't want to use treated lumber due to the chemicals

1- 4'x4' piece of plywood (lowe's and HD have these precut in the wood isle)

scrap 2x4's for legs

plastic tarp/sheet

cut your 2x8 boards so they make a frame on top of your plywood

These cuts won't be exactly 4' cuts due to overlap - measure twice cut once!

layout your 2x8's in the square and lay the plywood on top and screw the plywood

then flip it all over and screw in the corners to each other

I then stained mine (the same as our deck color -solid stain eco-friendly)

I didn't stain the inside

then drill some drain holes...I did about 9 holes total

decide the height you want your bed

cut two 2x4's the decided height and screw them together in a L shape

screw them on from the inside

I then stained the legs

lay the tarp or plastic down inside your box and cut holes for drainage

then add your mix

Square Foot Garden Mix:

1/3 vermiculite

1/3 peat moss

1/3 compost

Then create a grid 12x12 across the top of the bed - I used wire but you could use anything; string, wood dowels, etc.

Here it is!

It's not perfect....but it works!

I planted my seedlings Monday...so we'll see what happens!