In this post, I’ll share exactly how I built a DIY raised bed garden for our yard for half the cost of buying it already made! Thanks to this beautiful garden (and for the bunnies not being able to reach it) we have had a blast growing our own veggies this summer!
This year I decided I wanted to finally try gardening but we live next to some woods and we have deer, rabbits, and even the occasional bear.
While we do have a fenced in yard, the rabbits still get in all the time. My priority was just to keep the garden up off the ground.
I started to look at the nice, wooden raised gardens and anything that was decently sized was way out of my price range.
Had I built anything like this before? Nope!
It didn’t stop me from jumping right in and doing it anyway though! It did work for quite a while until we unfortunately got over 30+ straight days of rain and my garden stopped growing.
However, I’m excited to use it again next year. I may even build a second one!
Building a DIY raised garden bed
To start, I chose to build the legs out of pressure-treated posts since it would be outside.
I actually already had one post that I cut in half to create two legs so I only needed to buy one more post at the store.
I also purchased some cedar boards. I had read that cedar was good for repelling insects.
The other thing I purchased were these garden bags. My mother-in-law had used these the previous season and they worked SO WELL. So, I got a pack of these and set them up and arranged them in my living room to measure approximately how large I needed to make the garden bed.
If you don’t have time now but want to save this for later, pin it to your favorite board!
I knew from helping my mother-in-law make her garden bed, that the bags needed to be able to drain well so I purchased some wire fencing for the bottom of the garden bed.
After the legs were cut to size, I started on the sides.
Constructing the body of the garden bed
As mentioned, I used cedar boards for the sides and chose to miter the corners. This isn’t required or necessary. You can easily just cut them to size and use a butt joint method.
I used a scrap piece of cedar to create a small space between the two boards. This was simply for design interest and not required for the function of the garden bed.
I secured the boards to the legs using wood screws.
Adding a metal fencing botttom to your garden
I chose to use metal fencing for maximum drainage. I cut it to size and then used staples to hold it in place.
Then, I used a hammer and some fencing staples to nail it securely to the bottom of the garden sides.
The fencing staples are much sturdier than the staples in a staple gun. These were easily hammered into the cedar.
To add additional support, I also added some wood boards as “brackets” across the garden bed that I secured with screws. Having the brackets takes a bit to pressure and weight off the fencing. Those garden bags get heavy when all the dirt is added!
Finishing details for your garden
You can finish the garden however you’d like. I chose to stain the wood with a stain that I already had.
While the stain is a little more “orange” than I would like, it’s fine for now!
The finished raised garden bed
Overall, I think it turned out great and it worked well (until the massive amount of rain). I’m very excited to build a second one next year and give the garden another try!
Materials used:
- Impact driver + screws
- Fencing staples
- Metal fencing
- Pressure treated posts
- Cedar wood
- Gardening bags
(The fencing and lumber was purchased at my local Lowes Home Improvement store)
I made a reel for this on my Instagram, you can watch it below! Isn’t it so fun to see how much kids love to get involved with gardening?
If you enjoyed this tutorial, be sure to follow me on Instagram for daily DIY and join the newsletter to stay up to date on new projects!