Garden Enclosure

Back On Track!  Sometimes, when I get most frustrated about a project, I back off and think.  There is almost always a solution to any simple problem.  I found a solution to the problem I most recently posted about on the subject.

The problems were having to build framed beds on unlevel ground, keeping 2 layers of boards even and connected, and making the paths wide enough to get around all the beds in an enclosed area.

Sometimes the solutions are pathetically obvious in hindsight, sometimes the solutions are less obvious.

The biggest problem with my original design is that I did not take the thickness of the boards.  2x8 boards are 1.5" thick.  Not much, but after 3 beds with boards on both sides, that adds up.  Each framed bed takes 3" and 3 beds is almost a foot.

So instead of all the framed beds being 4' wide, the center one is 3'.  That gives me 2' paths and 3" to mess up in.

Then I realized that having 7' long beds meant that the center pole support would be in the middle of a path.  ARGH!  So, the center beds will be 8' and 6' instead of 7' and 7'.  The ceter support pole will be exactly on the side of the 8' framed bed.

The last problem is that the yard is unlevel.  I don't want to make the beds be unlevel, s I need to adjust the board frames so they ARE level.  But at one end, that puts the frame above ground.  I decided to slip a 1" board at the lower end on the first beds.  That's a bad fix.  The RIGHT way to do it is to bury a 2"x4" board at the lower level til it "just reaches ground level and set the new frames on top of that.  If that isn't clear, don't worry it works.  I had done that on another project 20 years ago and forgotten.  I "reinvented the wheel" so to speak.  Anyway, it will work.

So I am back on the project.

Tomorrow, I go to Home Depot and buy twelve 2"x8"x8' pressure-treated boards.  I had planned to do that today, but I ended up raking fallen trees debris off my roof. and them sweeping the debris off the deck. 

But I know how to complete my garden enclosure project now, and that's the main thing.