Let's build our garden bed

OK let's get started!

It's early in June, 2010, Location is somewhere near Phoenix, Arizona. The temperature is around 105 or so. The idea of building a raised garden sprouted in our heads as our family searches for an escape from over processed and chemical filled foods. With disease and sickness part of everyday life, it only made sense to start with the food we eat. This starts our adventure to live healthier, more fulfilling lives.

Our Arizona garden project begins by building a raised garden be approx. 20' x 3' x 12". It started out being two stacked 1" x 6" pine boards, wrapped in a protective 6 mil black plastic to keep the chemicals in the wood from leaching out into the soil. We soon added another 1" x 6" pine board to make the overall height approx. 18" high with 2" or so buried in the ground. We read that this would be the optimal height for growing most everything here in the desert.

Here are a few photos from the building phase of the raised garden bed:

(This took two of us about half of a really warm Saturday)

We used three 4" x 4" x 5' posts to support our raised garden bed. We buried these approx. 12" deep seeing that this would be deep enough for support while allowing us a little break from having to dip down really deep in this hard compacted Arizona dirt. The wood we used for the border was 1" x 6" x 10' pine. Along the wall we covered 1/2" plywood with the same 6 mil plastic to help keep any water run off from sneaking through and/or under the wall.

We added a lattice at the entrance of the garden to help support a few cape honey suckle plants - extra shade is always nice in the hot summer :) The plan is to irrigate this raised bed with a drip system running along the back.