With the mental hurdles largely cleared, it was time to get down to business. Getting the wood home was no small task, but thankfully my compact car didn't get the memo that it's not a truck. All this wood in the car proved irresistable to this particular small. Can you blame him really?
After debating cedar or redwood or reclaimed or cinderblocks or..., I settled on inexpensive 2x6 douglas fir. Each bed would be 4 ft by 8ft and I could add 6 beds total. I've read on the interwebs that douglas fir will not last as long and isn't as rot resistant, but it will suffice and allow us to give this gardening project a go. To secure the beds, we used corner metal brackers and screws. Both the kids took great delight in trying their hands at construction.
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Once we got into the swing of it, they came together fairly quickly. As soon as we placed them in the front yard it was apparent I had underestmated the severity of the slope of our front yard. I'll leave it to a a mathemetician to figure out the degree of it, but one end of the 8 foot bed was 10 inches lower than than the other. It was tempting to just leave it, but a closer to level bed, would give the yard a better look and our plants better conditions to grow in.
The solution to this involed another trip to the lumber yard, diagagnal cuts, additional supports and the dissasmlbing and rebuilding of the already complete beds. These missteps and the trial and error nature of this project have invited me to slow down and remain steadfast, without an immediate reward. It's not been perfect. I've made errors and had to redo the work. Honestly, if it weren't for the piles of wood in the yard and the insatiable desire of the smalls of my home to build our garden beds, I might have become discouraged and found a reason to let the project go. Instead, we made it work and two months after my initial wood purchase, we had beds that were ready for planting.
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