Building a Raised Bed from Scrap Wood

A step by step story of how we built a raised bed from old shelf boards

Growing at least a few vegetables in the garden each year is a tradition in my family. Especially this year, when going to the store seemed very daunting at times, we wanted to have more plants. I would have liked to convert the entire front lawn into a vegetable garden, but we have a dog who likes to chill out on the grass. She is also a passionate digger. Whatever she is looking for, mice, bones, treasures, it might be under a plant so why not rip it out? Therefore having normal beds isn’t a great solution.

Raised beds are a good alternative. They have been getting more popular over the years and come in many different shapes and sizes. Besides saving the plants from digging dogs, they also have other advantages: working on the plants is a lot less straining on your back and knees, and slugs have a harder time getting to the plants. However, buying a raised bed from a hardware store is quite expensive considering they are basically just a box — the easiest 3D shape to build out of wood. So we decided to build one by ourselves from scrap wood we had lying around in the basement.

Constructing the Raised Bed

Constructing a raised bed is very straight forward. Four posts in the corners and four boards for the sides. We had three wooden boards from an old shelf and two stilts from when we were little. The stilts were sawed into four…