Front Yard Garden Center

First, we began this huge under taking (11 raised beds), about a year ago. Not because it took that long to build the actual raised beds, but in locating the needed local compost to fill them with. All of the beds are built out of old boards we scavenged. I am an avid gardener, and now sell seeds under the DollarSeed name, so having my own gardens is very important to me. We grow both for our own use, as well as to sell on a front yard stand that has yet to be constructed. After the initial beds were built, we red wood stained them for optical pleasure. We then hit a gold mine of used lumber locally, and built an arbor to create an entrance. We then purchased the needed PT 2x4's to build our rendition of @Jay's Custom Creations, garden bench. Once the bench was built, we decided we had enough left over wood to build flower boxes for the ends of the bench. This servers two purposes. Since the bench didn't have arms, we needed a place to set cold drinks down while we rest from weeding. We also wanted to add flowers to the area to attract the pollinators.

The beds are nothing more than screwed together boards of what ever thickness and height were available. Some we made deep for root vegetables, and some shallow for those that grow above ground. The shallow ones are ample for growing things like onions, radish, peppers, tomato, etc.

The garden flower boxes shown here are 20" x 20". The wood we acquired was 7" x 2" tongue and groove. Each section of the box was made by first building the smaller boxes, then combining them to get to our over all 21" height. The three adjoining boxes were then attached to each other, with 1x3 fir strip type boards. Again, all held in place by screws, to allow disassembly later if needed. We then used 1x4 boards to put a rail around each box. Though the boxes look deep, in reality,, they have a false bottom placed 5.5" below the top rail, to save on the expensive dirt. This bottom has 5 holes in it to allow for drainage.

Once completed, these we painted green to match the arbor we built also out of reclaimed wood. Then placed on each end of the bench.

We filled each of the planter boxes much like we did the grow beds. 1/2 garden soil, 1/2 compost. Then arranged the flowers to look the best when presented as you leave the garden, rather than enter it. Since most of our customers will only see this from the road, rather than up close, I wanted us to get the benefit :)

All told, we have maybe $30 invested in 2 1/2" decking screws and about the same in lumber and gas. The flowers on the other hand were purchased from a local nursery and added about another $40 to the costs. I don't mind. I sell seeds, but I don't have the needed time to watch them grow :)