So I've got this box, but what goes in it?!

I didn't have that question in my head quite like that. I started planning what was going in the box long before my box was done. As you can guess two things go into a garden box, dirt and plants.

The question of what dirt to put in the box was a more complicated than I though it would be. According to square foot gardening, you should use Mel's Mix, a magic formula of 1/3 Compost, 1/3 peat moss, 1/3 vermiculite. To make a longer story shorter, I did some reading online and first figured out what vermiculite was, and settled on a suggested combination of 1/2 compost, 1/4 peat moss, and 1/4 vermiculite. One of the main reasons I was willing to go with that combination was that the vermiculite was really expensive ($20/2cf) and the peat was fairly expensive ($10 /2cf).

I was actually just going to go with plan dirt, or 100% compost to save money, but when we were at Lowe's and I commented out loud about how expensive that bag of vermiculite was, my wife said "Well, are you going to get it or what?" So instead of trying to convince her of how expensive this 'magic fluffy stuff' was, I just grabbed it and threw it into the cart!

We were in a hurry that day, so I only got the 2 cf (cubic foot) bag of vermiculite, and a 2 cf bag of peat moss. Later I went back and got the compost. The bags weren't 100% compost like i wanted, but it was the best that Lowe's had. So I ended up with the following:

• 2 cf vermiculite ($20)
• 2 cf peat moss ($10, of the miracle grow variety)
• 2 cf compost
• 1.5 cf compost
• 1 cf compost

For a grand total of 8.5 cubic feet of magic mel's mix. Since my box is 4' x 3' by about 9" high, I needed 9 cf to fill the whole box, so I figured 8.5 would be enough.

Put it all together.

I have no pics of assembly, but it's pretty simple based on the sketchup file (if I can get it hosted!).

Some notes:

Fill the cracks and gaps in your lumber first.

Stain the wood second.

Then start drilling and screwing!

Since this is going to be a vegetable garden, and I've read that you're not supposed to use stain or varnishes on wood that will come in contact with the soil (and therefor the veggies), I only stained the outside of the wood. Any part that doesn't touch the dirt got some decking waterproofer stuff. It was kinda expensive at $14 for a small can, but hopefully it will make my cheapo box last longer. I intend to coat the inside of the box with mineral oil (from the laxative section of your grocery store), as this is food safe and may help to increase the life of the inside of the box.

I used a 3/8" round-over router bit on the top of the box to help soften the edges of the box that I'll be leaning over when I garden. Fortunately, I already had the bit from a different project since the stupid thing was ~$30+.

Putting the box together was pretty simple, just make sure that the sides boards and front/back boards are oriented correctly (I messed up one corner and had to redo it).

The legs are only slightly more complicated since you're working with lag bolts. One thing I would do different is to make some sort of bolt hole template so that all the holes are the same on each corner. That way if I ever need to remove the legs for transportation (aka, if we move houses), any leg can go on any corner.

For the lag bolts, here's what I recommend: Using a spade type wood hole bit that is big enough for your socket wrench, drill into a scrap piece of wood until you have a hold deep enough for the head of the lag bolt and the washer to sit flush or a bit recessed. Then take a piece of scotch/painters tape and wrap it around the bit at the correct depth. If you leave a little tag on the tape, you'll be able to tell when the spinning tag on the bit hits the board you are drilling into. Now you can drill all your lag bolt 'counter sink' holes.

Here is a picture of the finished product.

From 2011 Garden

Once all 16 of the 'counter sink' holes are drilled, you can switch to a regular drill and drill pilot holes for the lag screw. You want the pilot holes in the side boards to be larger than the screw, but the pilot holes in the legs to be smaller than the screw. This way you can easily push the lag screw through the side board, but you'll still have good bite into the leg without splitting the wood.

After the Cedar colored stain/waterproofer and routing the top of the box, it's looking pretty nice. Here is a picture of the box on the back patio!

From 2011 Garden

The Hunt for Garden Box Plans

I've wanted to have a little garden for a while. I don't want to subsist of what I grow, but I've always like to create things, and growing things is just another form of creation (or transformation?).

A friend at work is all into square foot gardening and he has touted the awesomenesses of that gardening technique, and it seemed like the thing for me. Low amounts of weeding, maximum output for the space, hard to over water, etc. So I decided that if i was to garden, it would be a square foot garden. It also seems to have quite the following, so I know there will be easy answers online if i need help.

So the first step in having a square foot garden was to come up with plans for a box to put it in. My situation gives me some interesting requirements for the garden box I would need. First I live in a town home so I have no yard to put the box on, just a 10' by 25' cement patio at the back of our house. Next, we have 2 small kiddos with a third on the way and my wife didn't want to have to keep the kids out of the garden box when they went on the patio. And finally, being cheap means I want the box to cost as little as possible.

So, the box needs to...

• Have a bottom raised to about waist high
• Fit on our small patio
• Be cheap cheap!

So I started my seach of the internet for DIY raised garden boxes and found nothing but boxes that you put onto dirt in your back yard. Finally I found a link to a waist high garden box, and using the Way Back Machine, got plans for it. I slightly modified the design, including making it 4' by 3', and drew it all up in Google Sketchup. (add link to sketchup file when I can figure out where to host it!)

The material list for this box is:

• 1, 4'x8' 7/16 OSB
• 1, 4"x4" x12' (this could have been 2, 2"x4" x12', but I found a 4x4 at Lowe's)
• 2, 2"x4" x8'
• 2, 2"x10" x8'

I went with plain jain douglas fir, even though this is an outside box. I debated going with redwood, but it would have made the wood cost twice as much. Other than the wood, I also used

• a bunch, #8 2.5" zinc screws (had on hand)
• 16, 1/4" 3" galvanized lag screw
• 16, 1/4" washers (had on hand)

These wood and hardware choices may not have been the best for an outside project, but I didn't care, they were cheap! Here is a cut list. I had the hardware store cut everything for me, which made assembly super easy.

• 2, 2"x10" x48" (front and back sides)
• 2, 2"x10" x39" (left and right sides)
• 4, 2"x4" x39" (stretchers? joists? underneath thingys that the floor rests on?)
• 2, osb 36"48" (double floor)
• 4, 4"x4" x36" (legs, use 8, 2"x4" x36" if you can't find 4x4s)

Here is a pic of the cut wood, minus the floor.

Next post will be about assembly notes and some final pics.

Start of the Blog

So I'm starting this blog to mainly record my successes and/or failures with my gardening hobby this year. I'm going to be doing a 4'x3' square foot garden on my back 'patio' of my town home, and I wanted to keep a record of things.