Step 1: Make the raised flower bed.

Since spring is right around the corner I've been spending a little time researching how I want to plant my vegetable garden this year. After some reading I decided I wanted to start out this year with a raised bed, just to see how I do, before I tear up a section of my yard for something that might not turn out...

I ran across some pretty detailed but simple instructions for a raised bed using Cedar fence panels here. She promised it could be made for about $10, which is fantastic because Cedar wood is super expensive. 

Mark had the day off yesterday (he gets a rotating day off every other week, so every other Friday he has off!) so I showed him the plans that I had found to make the bed and he said he would give it a try for me!

This little beauty is what I came home to!

The sides are made out of the individual fence panels which is the key to keeping the cost low, because the panels are only about $2 each at the hardware store. (Ana White's blog, where the plans come from, is the one that suggests that little gold nugget of information!) He did say the fence panels had a tendency to split when drilling the screws in to them because they were so thin and he didn't have the tool Ana White said to use (Kreg Jigs). But he made it work after a couple of tries. Cause he's the man like that. :) Ana does a fantastic job at describing how to build this, complete with pictures and diagrams, so I'm just going to refer you on to her for all of the "how to"'s.

Seeing it in the back yard gets me all excited to fill it full of earth and get my seeds planted in there. In fact I'm feeling so confident that I'm going to see if I can get him to build me another one and maybe add a few more vegetables than I had originally planned! I looked up some information on planting seasons in our area and it looks like I should wait until the end of March, early April to plant the vegetables that I want to,  it's so warm out today (70 degrees!) that I'm tempted to just get it all in now! Thankfully I know that would be a bad idea because we still have some night time frosts to watch out for, so I'm going to do my best and just count down the days patiently. :)