NEM Hawaii Victory Garden Bed Building

Wow, what a Mother's Day!  So much fun and energy with the family, but this momma is P OO PED today! ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ  So pardon me if my sentences run on or make no sense at all.  That's how it is being a momma of 5, sometimes sleep is only something I get to think about occasionally.  Anyways, yesterday my husband and I did a video on how we built our garden beds, but since we are only working with a cell phone as a video camera, the volume level isn't the best so I will try to write down a generalization of what was said.

We built our 5 wooden beds (one big one and four half the size of the big one) on less than $10.  We acquired the wood for the beds by asking if the scrap wood pile near the dumpsters at my husband's work (he works on a military base) was free for the taking, it was!  So working with what we acquired, we were able to build beds that are about 22 in high and varying widths.  Now 22 in high is way more than we need to work with as far as growing, so... we plan on filling the bottom with some rock we have that will help take up volume in the beds as well as help add drainage ability since the beds are sitting on concrete.  We also didn't make the beds exactly flush with the ground (there is a little space) so that will aid in drainage as well.  We took scrap two by fours and broken up bookshelf we had already and built braces in the middle and connectors for the corners.  The braces in the middle are to help aid in the beds not bowing to the weight of the soil pressing against the sides since they are long and high.  We will also aid in this by not filling the beds all the way to the top (maybe half way or a little more).  Additionally, we plan on adding small drill holes to the side (where the soil will be) to help aid in aeration and drainage.  We got our nails from Re-Use Hawaii, they are used but we got a ton for about $6 and they work well enough.  (We used both a hand saw we already had and a borrowed circular saw to cut the wood as well and make sure to bend the nails down so they don't stick out after you hammer them in...FYI)

We also made a brick bed on the side of the house under our rain gutters because it's a shady spot and good for leafy veggies that don't like a lot of direct sunlight.  We had the bricks already in our yard marking our tiny wrap around tree bed that we just plucked out and stacked.  We used plastic folder dividers (stapled together) to protect the house from the wet soil constantly up against it (it would rot otherwise) and are going to make drainage openings in the bricks so there is no standing water.