Bed in daylight

This is what the bed looks like in daytime.  You can also see it's placement in our yard!

Building the Bed

*** the pictures of the actual building of the bed were taken by my step daughter... we are still working on focusing.. I apologize in advance!)

I found out (after searching Craigs.list) that the lumber store right up the road was going out of business.  They had grade 2 (apparently not as nice... but who cares- there going to be filled with dirt!) 2x10's for $3.00 a piece.  THREE DOLLARS!!!!  So, I bought a bunch.  Except I only had my car to bring them all home.  Don't fret, I'm good at fitting wood into my car!

So after 3 trips back and forth, my neighbor (who's also doing a raised bed- were sorta doing this thing together!) and I were the proud owners of 15 boards.

We stacked them neatly in her garage, and waited for the right time to build them (ie-no more snow).

We laid out a rough area that we thought it would go.  My husband really wanted to make sure we were away from the lines, so we had them marked, and ended up moving the whole bed further to the right.

We He cut the wood.

And pre-drilled the holes. 

We made the bed 16 feet long, so we had to 'join' the two boards in the middle.  We put a 2x4 on the outside the height of our bed and screwed in the two boards from the inside. 

We used 18" stakes.  We pounded them far enough in the ground that they were flush with the top of the garden bed when it was finished.

Once we got the 2x4 base secured, we added the 2x10 on top.  We added the 2x4 to the mix just to make it a bit taller, so the dirt wouldn't be so close to the top (at that point not knowing how much dirt we would end up with).

Putting the finishing touches on it... but done!