Bells and Whistles of the Raised Garden Beds

Last time we chatted about the garden beds, we had the bases of the two beds all put together. With that finished, we were able to add all the awesomeness. The first thing we added was a topper.

We did this for two reasons: it covered and anchored the plastic that lines each bed and it gives a nice place to sit or kneel if we're weeding or acts as a lot of bench seating if we have an outdoor gathering.

Nate secured the topper with a bunch of bolts. Since the railroad ties aren't perfect, neither is the topper, but it stays with the more rustic theme so I like it.

We used the dirt that we took out of this spot to fill the beds back up most of the way. We left about 5 inches to be filled so that we could install the sprinkler. I really like this system. Nate had already run the water hose so all that we had to do was poke holes where we wanted the sprinklers and screw the little sprinklers in. Then you add toppers to the sprinkler depending on which direction you want it to spray.

We filled the rest of the bed up with gardening soil and let the sprinklers really soak the bed for a couple of hours before planting.

Each garden bed also got an outdoor plug on the end of it so we can actually have access to electricity without traipsing an extension cord through the house.

So after all that work we are here:

Here's the view from the back door. I'll show you later what we planted, but you can just see some things starting to pop up.

And this is looking towards the back door. It's definitely an improvement to this spot in the yard but it's not finished yet!