Raised Bed Garden Tutorial

Building a raised bed garden is so much easier than you would think, especially when someone GIVES YOU the raised bed frame! My neighbor across the street decided that her 4' x 4' bed wasn't working for her & she gave it to me.

One thing that you DON'T have to do when installing a raised bed is remove the grass underneath. You will want to use a level, however, and level out underneath the bed frame which might require some grass removal, but you don't have to dig up all the sod.

Once you've found your spot for the raised bed, level underneath it and then spread a thick layer of newspaper on top of the grass. Wet the newspaper down-totally saturate it-to keep it from blowing around and to help jump start the decomposition. The newspaper will kill the grass and because it's wet and thick, it will attract WORMS like crazy. They will do the bulk of the work in removing the grass. So cool!

This 4' x 4' bed required 4 Sunday newspapers to fully cover it.  Don't skimp on the newspaper. Also note-this is my first foray into FRONT YARD  VEGETABLE GARDENING!!

Once you've got the surfaced covered with wet newspaper, you have a couple of options. If it's Fall, a nice thick layer of chopped up leaves (run them through your lawnmower) would be a nice addition. You could also put layers of leaves, soil, compost, etc. Make sure that whatever you use, you leave the soil/compost/leaves/etc crowned on the top as the rain & snow will work the soil down into the ground.

Here's my finished bed:

This bed has a nice layer of leaves, followed by the remaining topsoil we had delivered. While you can't  see it well in the photo, the soil is crowned in the middle because I k now the snow this winter will cause settling by Spring. 

That's it! So simple. I will continue to add compost and leaf clippings to this until I run out. The nice crown I gave it 1 week ago has almost sunk down level, so I know I need to add more to the bed. Hope you found my "building a raised bed garden tutorial" easy to follow!

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