Epic DIY Raised Garden Bed Reveal

My epic raised garden beds are finished and ready for primetime. Come check out the reveal and let me know what you think!

Continued from How to Make a Round Raised Garden Bed

With the grunt work almost over, it was almost time to shift gears from the donkey work to the delicate work.

Almost.

First, I had a date with a shovel and a wheelbarrow.

Epic DIY Raised Garden Bed Reveal VIDEO

Watch our short and fun video below for an overview of our raised garden beds before you read the reveal!

When I began this little garden-building adventure, I had emptied two old metal raised beds on the other side of the yard and piled the sandy soil just off the lawn. Who am I kidding, it was literally just sand, which is why nothing but weeds grew in those damn beds.

After filling the wheelbarrow about halfway, I puffed out my chest and gorilla-walked across the yard while my heart protested each step and my arms threatened to unionize and secede from my torso.

This bullshit was for the birds, if, that is, birds were hulking behemoths with brains even smaller than the ones employed by one-ounce sparrows.

Obviously, I wasn’t about to repeat the same mistakes I made with the old metal beds. Sand is for lying on at the beach and washing out of your buttcrack when you get home. It doesn’t make for good vegetables.

But it was great filler for the bottom of my raised beds, so I humped load after load across the yard while my back threw hissy fits and my pores hemorrhaged water like China’s Three Gorges Dam.

When the sand pile ran…dry, I switched to bags of sweet, nutritious soil, full of all the laboratory and factory-infused goodness today’s modern plants crave. Better living through chemistry!

Seriously though, this was a bitchin’ deal at Lowe’s I just couldn’t pass up!

Soooooo…I ordered 210 bags. 😁

I was only off by a pallet…so what? I’m stockpiling those bags…wait for it…inside the old metal raised beds! (It’s perfect)

The bed wasn’t completely finished yet, so don’t get any ideas about that when you see me planting in the pictures below.

It’s just that when I went to get soil, all these veggie plants were on sale too!

What was I supposed to do? Not buy them?

Astute madams who’ve been lingering around the Navage Patch for a while should understand that when I’ve been saying “I,” I really mean “my babes.”

My babes is the reason we have plants in plastic containers strewn about the yard waiting to be deposited into the earth each spring.

Every year I make her promise not to overbuy on the first lot and inform her that she’s forbidden from buying more plants until the ones she just bought are all safely tucked into the soil.

Every year she agrees.

And every year she breaks the promise on the second shopping trip.

It’s a delightful game we play that drives me up the frickin wall.

After schlepping the whole sand pile across the yard in the wheelbarrow and then busting my lily white butt humping bags of soil from the driveway to the garden, my (nearly) 52-year-old body finally called a powwow with my my bird-sized brain.

My body argued that I’m a Moron of the Highest Order and demanded an immediate cease and desist on the donkey work. My brain couldn’t argue the obvious, but since the work had to get done, it offered to search for a better way.

And it found one.

Its name is Chore Warrior, and it’s a battery-powered, rechargeable, power-assisted wheelbarrow.

In other words, it’s a certified Life Saver.

This marvel allows me to haul 2x to 3x what I could with my wimpy geezer muscles alone.

Just press the thumb throttle and go!

So easy!

This company is fantastic! They’re a small outfit based in St. Paul, Minnesota, and their PAW (power assisted wheelbarrow) has extended my usefulness by decades!

I got in touch with the company, and they offered to give me a discount code to share with you guys.

If you’re in the market for a game-changing and body-saving wheelbarrow, go to the Chore Warrior website and enter discount code NAVAGE120 to get $120 off your order.

I carried the soil for the round raised beds with my Chore Warrior. Can’t you see how much happier I look?? 😂

While my plants drank up the nutrients, I worked to finish beautifying the beds. I capped the inner walls with 8-foot treated-pine pickets.

I ran a bead of construction adhesive down the line…

…and then I laid on the cap. I ripped the original 6-inch-wide picket down to 4-inches wide.

I shot brads into the 4×4 posts to keep the cap in place.

I didn’t film it, but after installation, I stained them with Cabot Heartwood like the rest of the beds.

I took this opportunity to modify my irrigation system. I was about to install the irrigation timer when it dawned on me that I needed another dedicated spigot for a hose! Fortunately, I’ve become proficient at irrigation pipe work, so I added another spigot off the back.

Up top, I assembled the components to keep The Shrimp’s veggies watered and healthy.

I won’t bore you with the details, but the irrigation took wayyyyy longer than I anticipated due to pressure loss from the dinky 1/4 inch tubing. I solved this by adding some regular garden hose into the mix. In the end, I got 3 zones up and running with these miniature spray heads.

While the plants bathed in cool waters, I toiled under the merciless Florida sun to cut pieces of black vinyl lattice.

I really should have done this in the shade. Without gloves, I wouldn’t have been able to touch the black lattice without suffering painful first degree burns.

I installed the lattice between the posts.

I even got the fancy caps for the tops and bottoms.

I tacked the whole shebang together with brads. So far, so good. It’s been about a month, and they’re still holding up and not warping.

The only modification I had to do was zip tie the bottom cap to the lattice in two places on each section.

My last step was to add lights, because that’s just what we do here at The Navage Patch. Lights make everything better. Well, lights and a dry martini, but you catch my drift.

After the post caps, I hung solar string lights and then I added deck lights to the cap.

Seriously, this power wheelbarrow makes me almost feel like a 20-something again.

Almost.

Go get one for yourself and thank me later. Don’t worry, I’m not making a dime from those guys. It’s just one of those rare products that is so incredible, I want to shout about it from the rooftops.

Not that anyone would hear me here in one-story Florida, but you get my point.

And now it’s time for the proper reveal. Let’s have a look at this epic raised garden bed.

The little sprinklers in action!

Here’s an iPhone shot of Penny looking fabulous in front of the beds that Daddy just built.

You know my two nicknames for Handan are My Babes and The Shrimp. Would you believe we found Shrimp Flowers at Lowe’s??

Just wait until the night!

The round beds turned out amazing – a perfect counterpoint to the main bed!

This eggplant is about to GROW!

These are special melons, the seeds for which came from Handan’s dad. He’s been eating melon for 80 years, but this particular one was the sweetest he’s ever tasted, so he set aside the seeds for us to grow. I can’t wait!

At night, this garden comes ALIVE!

I’ll let the rest of the pictures speak for themselves.

Please let us know what you think about our new garden in the comments!