Building a self watering raised planter bed
03/20/2022
By Mike Thayer
I love to garden and I've got a new place to create one this season having moved from an apartment to a house. I inherited an established yard and there are plenty of existing plantings - evergreens, ornamental grasses, ivy - along the perimeter of the yard, but the middle of the back yard is a blank canvas, ample room to get creative in developing a vegetable garden, with space to put in some flower beds to boot.
Enter a raised bed garden, no digging required and self watering!
Why break ground, till, clear grass and work to amend the soil when I can put together a couple raised bed gardens instead? Besides, harvesting veggies and cutting flowers from a raised garden is MUCH easier on the knees and I love the concept of adding a self watering feature to the raised beds!
Here's the materials list:
- Six 12' 2x6s
- Three 12' deck boards
- Two 10' 2x4s
- One 8' 2x4
- Four 8' 2x2s
- 24' of 4" diameter perforated drain pipe with sleeve
- Pond liner
- Exterior screws
- Raised bed planter mix
- 1/2' vinyl tubing for drainage
- 1-1/2" CPVC (fill tube)
This project should take me two, maybe three days to assemble, position and plant the raised beds. A couple of nice benefits to having the raised beds will be the ability to easily cover the bed with an old fitted sheet if there is a frost warning in the forecast and that self watering feature - watering the roots of the plants which cuts down on diseases like blight and mildew.
Stay tuned, cost breakdown and project pics coming soon!
Related: What I built for my apartment patio a few years back
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