DIY Garden Box

I really admire all of those folks with a green thumb.  I mean me, I really don't have any green in either thumb, but I do try...a little.  I thought it would be a great idea to grow and harvest our own vegetables this season.  Why not, it's not like I don't have the time to take care of a garden...how hard could it be???  First things first, I have to build a raised bed.  I did a lot of investigating on Pinterest and online of how to build the box, why to build the box, etc.  The benefits seemed good.  I saved bundles of newspapers to line the bottom of the box with, I purchased my plants, I was getting prepared. 

I went to my local brick and mortar home improvement store and bought the supplies that I needed.  I bought 6 pieces of 4x6x10 pressure treated lumber and 1 4x4 pressure treated post, I got decking screws. fertilizer, dirt, organic compost, pvc for irrigation...the works.

Once I got home, I tore the electric drill out of the shed, along with the circular saw, level and tape measure.  Boy, I was gonna do this...unassisted!  I measured, cut, pre-drilled, screwed the wood together and had myself a raised garden box.  I already had that black weedscreen stuff.  I think it's by Preen.  I measured and cut the weedblocker, covered that in my pre-moistened newspaper, got my dirt lugged into the backyard (jeez, that gets heavy), then my husband came home.

Finished product, just had to be flipped over

"Whatcha doing."  Uh-oh, dreaded words from his mouth.  In simple plain language...what have you done and are you planning on fixing this.  My response, proudly "I've built us a vegetable garden."  His reply "Are you going to make it level?"  Level?  I have to make it level?  I mean the wood was all cut and screwed together and I made sure the box itself was level, but making it level in the ground...what???  My reply "Level?  What do you mean?  It looks great to me!"  His reply "Let me check."  Well, don't you know he whipped that level out placed it on the garden box and it was clearly NOT level.  I was way too tired to be digging through the ground to level it and I didn't have more pressure treated lumber to build the box up on one side.  I kinda thought if I played dumb enough that he would just finish the job for me.  Yeah, I'm not that lucky.  See, my husband could care less about having a vegetable garden.  He just knows it will somehow create more work for him...i.e., the example above. 

Needless to say, the vegetable garden box looked nice for a while.  It sat filled with bags of dirt and fertilizer, right in the very spot that I wanted to harvest our vegetables from.  My husband wasn't leveling it for me, not that I ever believed that needed to happen.  I got incredibly busy with those children of ours.  Who knew two kids on four teams would keep us overwhelmingly busy??  With how busy things got and maybe a tad bit of how lazy, stubborn, uninterested I became with growing my own veggies (remember I don't have a green thumb) I never got the vegetables in the ground

Now, my garden box sits in pieces behind our shed. Yes, I took it apart.  Soon to be used for another Pinteresting idea.  For the time being, we'll continue to buy our vegetables from others and my kids will continue to use my perfect place for vegetables as a perfect place for their toys.

Yup, that's Pinteresting!