Much deliberation (maybe too much) was spent on planning and designing how we would build and lay-out our backyard garden. We have a fairly small back yard, with several constraints — limited sun exposure, flood susceptibility, and underground utilities limited both where we could place our plots and how many we could build. With my background in landscape architecture, I could not bring myself to build something with no thought given to design, so we also gave considerable consideration to material choice and overall aesthetics.
Because this garden would be as much for our kids as it was for me, we were thoughtful about how the kids would use the space. There is a wonderful children’s garden in our town, and one of our kids’ favorite parts of that garden is a large area filled with pea gravel. It has a lot of the great aspects of a sandbox without the annoyance of getting sand everywhere. Rather than using mulch between our raised beds, we decided to use pea gravel — and treat the whole space as a giant sandbox for the kids. We even designed larger space in the center of the garden with the sole purpose of giving the kids more space to play with the gravel, but have found it to be helpful when working in the garden as well. The kids love the gravel, and get very creative when playing in their garden sandbox!
We found many online tutorials on how to build raised beds, and there is certainly no shortage of ideas and opinions out there. We went a more expensive route by selecting cedar boards versus a more inexpensive wood such as pine, but decided that the extra durability and longevity would be worth it since our garden is so small. The final product turned out very nice, has held-up well, and has since weathered to a beautiful grey color. Each bed was created with six 8-foot boards, stacked two-high, and are 8’x4′. I used 1″x2″ cedar stakes to secure the boards at the corners and the center of the 8′ sides. I hope to do a more detailed review of how I built my raised beds in a future post.
I wanted a nice clean edge to help delineate the garden space from the rest of the garden, so we used an aluminum landscape edging to contain the gravel. This, too, was a more expensive choice of material, but now that we are several years post-construction I’m glad we made this decision because of how well it has held-up. It was very easy to work with, as it came in sections that slid together nicely, and was simply secured using large metal stakes. I was able to make nice clean 90-degree corners using a 2×4 to stabilize a section and bending by hand. We then added a narrow flower bed around the entire edge of the garden, which has served as a great place to grow annual cut flowers, and gives a nice sense of enclosure to the entire space. We have experimented with how best to use this added growing space, and expect that will continue each summer. Most recently it was filled with zinnias, snapdragons, strawflower, and marigolds (both large and small!).
We also wanted to include space for a composting system in our garden, to collect all our compostable waste from the house and to create compost for our garden. Just as with the raised beds, we found many great ideas regarding how to build a great compost bin. Ultimately our came down to (1) space, (2) cost, and (3) past experience. We always had a very simple compost bin when I was a child: a few t-posts supporting 36″ chicken wire in a cylindrical shape. We ended-up creating a two-sided bin that I designed and built myself using basic dimensional lumber and poultry wire. I created lids for the top, to keep out any neighborhood critters, and to reduce the amount of random things being deposited by the little kids. It has served us well, although there are a few things I would change about my construction method if given the chance to rebuild in the future. I hope to do a more detailed overview of my compost system in a future post.
The last “feature” we added to our garden was a small trellis with a kid-sized bench underneath. Our oldest enjoys morning glories, and had collected some seeds off vines at my parents’ house, so we wanted a place for him to grow vining annuals. The kids love the bench that is “their size” and use it for collecting both veggies they pick and “special rocks” they find in their giant sandbox.
// Dad Gardener
Dad Gardener 