Anatomy of a Raised Garden Bed with Focus on Fasteners

Timestamps:
00:00 Lumber Delivery
00:14 Why You Sort Lumber
00:35 What Lumber to Buy
1:40 Bowing
2:54 Chemicals in Your Wood or Metal
3:47 Spacing Your Project
4:28 Squaring Your Project
6:02 Utilizing Scrap Lumber When Leveling the Bed
7:09 Fasteners
9:15 Securing Your Corners
10:17 Rough Assembly Choice of Fasteners
12:23 Tightening Up Your Boards
12:52 Metal Vs. Wood
13:51 Tightening Up Your Boards
15:00 Lining Your Beds with Plastic Pros and Cons
15:54 Bracing the Center to Prohibit Bowing
16:28 Cutting Metal Fasteners
17:42 Leveling Bed and Filling Gaps
18:27 Closing Statements
18:53 Theme Song
19:15 Outtakes

[@katieohalloran108]

This takes me right back to junior year when he used to teach us everything home repair!! My favorite time in high school. 😊😊

[@ryanfamilyfarm21]

Ohmygosh KATIE!? Junior year, Yes I remember a picture of you in your prom dress and wearing your Home Repair tool belt!

[@katieohalloran108]

@@ryanfamilyfarm21 Yep! It's me! So many great memories! I'm still using the skills here and there on our own home. 😁😁 Although I totally let my husband do the bulk of the work. 😆

[@Tazzyone.]

So jealous of your beds. Beautiful. Im working with 4 - 8ft long x 2ft wide by 3ft highmetal troughs, about 12 half barrel size containers and about 16 5 gallon buckets. Just started gardening 3yrs ago. Still building and learning.

[@ryanfamilyfarm21]

😊Thank you! Our goal is to have a total of 16 of the 4x16' cedar beds but you can see in the background at about 2:38 time stamp, that we also use a lot of potting buckets so you are looking good! Your Three foot high 4x8 metal garden beds are going to take a lot of fill (3.5 cubic yards)! We are trying to finish/add to our hugelkultur video (but temps here have been in the teens). You might check that video out for some cheap fill ideas. Hugelkultur has been a huge cost savings AND I know what is in my soil! ;)

[@Tazzyone.]

@ryanfamilyfarm21 yes I filled them the same way last year. Went around in the spring and collected all the branches that fell through the winter. Then ran my mower with the bag attached to get leaves. Filled the rest with 1/3 soil, 1/3 peat and 1/3 black cow. Still crazy expensive. It already started breaking down and dropped. But now only will add about 4" of new black cow and peat moss. Still getting the hang of it. Luckily my backyard gets full sun for about 8-9hrs. In Pennsylvania so our season is short. Have my strawberry seeds in the refrigerator for feb seed starting. Bought a 7tier greenstalk last year on clearance for them. Trying to encourage neighbors to try to grow something. Anything.

[@ryanfamilyfarm21]

@@Tazzyone. Wow, Pennsylvania, cool! KZbin is a wonderful thing! We Finally finished the Huglekulture video (Part 2) but sounds like you are right on target especially with mulching your leaves prior to incorporating into your raised beds. It would be nearly cost prohibitive for us to do anything BUT huglekulture. Our daughter in-law decided the metal beds were going to be a good fit and went the Vega brand. What metal beds did you choose and how do you rate them so far? Good on you for encouraging the neighbors to garden!