Easy and Affordable Garden Box

3 Materials
$20
1 Hour
Easy

With gardening season fast approaching, and lots of time at home, I decided to try my hand at some gardening. I live in the desert and I knew I was not about to try digging into the hard ground in my yard. So I made a plan to take the easy route and use a garden box...but first I needed to make my own...on the cheap.

I thought it best to start small and take it from there so I decided on a 2' x 4' garden box.

Supplies Needed


I purchased 4 - 1x6x6 cedar fence pickets from Lowe's for $2.52 each. How's that for cheap?

I already had some 2x2 pieces in my garage along with 1 1/2' wood screws so I was ready to go.

Using my miter saw I cut each picket so that I had a 2 ft piece and a 4 ft piece. I also cut the 2x2 into 4 12" pieces.

This photo shows the full picket...and then the cut pieces.

Drill Pilot Holes


This step may not be necessary for everyone but I decided to drill pilot holes, using my drill press, into each end of the picket pieces. It just made it easier for me to screw the wood screws into the 2x2.

Attach 4 ft Pieces to 2x2 Corner Brace


Now it's time to attach the pickets to the 2x2. I attached one 4 ft piece at each end to the 2x2, and then placing the next 4 ft piece butt against the first, I attached it as well. I repeated this process for the other two 4ft pieces.

Attach 2 ft Pieces to 2x2 Corner Brace


I then attached the 2 ft pieces to the 2x2 corners making sure they're flush with the end. I didn't waste any wood so I went ahead and used the end of the picket that has the dog eared corners. I thought it would give my garden box a bit of character.

Stand Back and Admire


That's it folks...that's how easy this garden box is to make....and you can't beat the price.

It literally cost me $10.

Time to place it in the garden


The beauty of a box this size is that it's easy to find a spot for it. It's deep enough for deep rooted plants but still raised a bit off the ground so you don't have to bend over quite so far, but the big kicker for me is that I can fill it up with soil that I can easily get a shovel into.

That's a win for this desert dweller. :)

Fill with soil and plants


This box took about 5 large bags of raised bed soil mixture to fill. I'm a bit late for the vegetable planting season here in zone 9b so I decided to just put some flowers in it for now while I work on some more boxes.

If you'd like to see what other DIY's I've been up to, feel free to visit me over on my blog at www.somethingpaintedwhite.com


Have a great day friends,

Cindy

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  • Jacquie Jacque Jacquie Jacque on May 24, 2020

    Question regarding the one 6-ft two by two- is it pressure treated or cedar?


    I made the mistake of using pressure treated wood the first time in the 80s lol and learned that it is not healthy to grow your edibles in pressure treated wood because of the chemicals leeching into the soil. I so loved your ingenuity in keeping this frugal and please don't take this disrespectful but rather informational as intended. I have been doing square ft gardening since PBS had Mel Bartholomew's book Square foot Gardening- amazing OLD hippy edition is the best. Im not getting anything by sharing. Just helping others out by utilizing your garden most effectively. I added pvc pipes and clamps to the backside for vertical growing tomatoes and climbing plants. Thanks SO MUCH for sharing! : )

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