I built these DIY Veggie Garden Boxes to grow my own food! (Beginner Friendly)

Ever since I moved into my home I’ve wanted to plant a vegetable garden. This spring I made it happen! I built two raised garden beds (my garage workshop came in handy) and planted my very first garden. I’m excited to see the plants grow–this will be a fun project for me and my daughter Ziya.

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LOCATION: Texas
BIRTHDAY: September 1993
ETHNICITY: African American
HEIGHT: 5’11
DAUGHTER: Named Ziya, born April 2016

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I feel like a real Gardener careful with my nails and then the annoying thing is is switching ah it’s hot just like with the other step I am kind of shove it on there yeah don’t trip Miss Raven don’t trip be Careful hey guys what’s up it’s Raven over the last few years you’ve seen me transform my backyard from literally just being an empty patch of grass to now having a pool a nice patio with a wet bar and a lot of landscaping has been done but I’m not done yet one of

The things that I always really wanted to add out here is my very own little vegetable garden and now that I’ve been getting more into bigger DIY projects and actually building things and working with power tools I thought maybe I can just build my own vegetable garden but

Here’s the thing I don’t know anything about building these type of wooden raised garden beds and I also don’t know anything about gardening in general so my goal is to do this in a very DIY beginner friendly way I got my girl Zoe to help me with the build and my mom to

Help me with the gardening cuz she does know a little bit about vegetable gardens and my plan is to just learn as I go so this is where I want to put it partially because this is the only spot I have okay the rest of my yard is

Accounted for pretty much but I feel like this is a good spot because I got this wall space I could like put up against the wall have things like climbing up the wall trellis Vibes yeah and then it gets good sunlight hitting right here like literally right in this

Perfect little spot is where the Sun hits M which I assume is good for vegetable plants I’d say so I don’t know and then like I have a decent amount of like length here so I want to do probably like two big boxes side by side

It’s a little sloped right here but like right up against the wall it’s not bad so I feel like that should be fine and the sloping definitely gets worse like off to the side so if we keep them like closer to the left over here we shouldn’t have an issue I don’t want

Them too close to the trash cans for obvious reasons it just feels nasty but like between this line right here somewhere around here and here 4ot 4ot 8T total yeah that’s Doable Based on our our unprofessional calculations we think we need eight bags of potting soil per box so 16 bags total Careful With My Nails 16 bags of Vigoro allpurpose potting mix some Pete Moss to mix in and we could mix in some perlite but look looks like they’re sold out don’t know much

About this but I know that this one says for vegetable gardens so I’m assuming this is good for vegetable gardens personally for me I don’t like the cherry tomatoes cuz they grow too wild and crazy and your your garden container is small so you want something

That’s going to pretty much kind of grow straight up uh for your first try so I would recommend the container tomato they’re smaller but they don’t go grow completely crazy and then anything that says hybrid for some reason does well in this climate big boys do fine any any of

These Tomatoes they here that they have here would work for your space if you’re going to do 12 plants total I would do three or four tomato plants two pepper plants maybe some herbs and some cucumbers so since I want to do three tomato Spots I’m just going to try three

Different kinds and then I can kind of see which ones work it’ll be an experiment so I’m going to do a patio tomato a Big Boy tomato and the celebrity Hybrid I love basil a lot of Italian dishes and stuff so it’ be nice to grow my own basil I’m going to do like how many three of these two and then cucumber cucumber is one of my favorite vegetables to eat get two of those the

Other thing that we need for the bottom of the plant plant beds is to put a whole bunch of logs and wood and twigs and things to kind of fill up space allegedly apparently so we’re in an undisclosed location sorting through all the tree trimmings that they’re just

Going to end up getting rid of looking for the right size logs that are small enough to fit because we do not have the right tools to be able to break down cut down some of these larger pieces but we’re just Scavenging for the right size Pieces All right so the process of actually building the garden boxes it’s essentially a series of frames that are stacked on top of each other to create the box shape um and so to make a frame we’ve got our 4ot pieces and our twoot pieces and it’s just creating a

Rectangle like so with the smaller pieces sandwiched inside we’ve already kind of experimented with this to see the best way to attach them what we found is that it’s best to drill a pilot hole even though this is Cedar and it’s a softer wood some people may say you

Don’t need to drill pilot holes you can use self- drilling screws or whatever and just go straight in we tried that it did not work I don’t know if this is going to work it’s having trouble I think these may not be the right supplies we’re drilling pilot

Holes and then we’re going to be using these 3-in exterior like deck screws so lining up the pieces to create a corner like this and then I’m just going to go about right there straight in and then second one and then the annoying thing is is switching ah it’s Hot so then that’s one corner attached I’ve already got this side attached and then obviously just going to do the same thing to attach that other Piece and then you have a rectangular frame wow 4X two size and I’m going to end up stacking six of these on top of each other to create about a two foot high box but fun fact did you know that 2x4s are not actually 4 in wide they’re

Like 3 and 1/2 so it’ll be like 21 in tall I guess so just like that I’ve got 12 frames built six frames for each box so I got them kind of grouped up here you can kind of see The Vibes a little bit and now it’s time to attach them

Together to actually create a box so it starts with one frame and then I have four 21 in long pieces of 2x4s which are going to act act as the interior stabilizers of this piece so they’re kind of going to go in each corner like

This I don’t know if it’s better to put them this way or this way or if it matters but basically these are going to get screwed in to attach it and then you stack the next frame screw it in stack the next frame screw it in and that’s

How the Box comes together one thing to note for those following along at home is to kind of make sure that you’re starting off level so that as you stack it up it will end up being level my garage floor here that I’m building off

Of is you know it may not be exactly level but it’s level enough so I’m just going to do it directly on the floor if not you might have to like level it and like prop something underneath it to make sure that you’re starting off level

But I should be good just like with the other step I am just like with the other step I am going to go ahead and drill a pilot hole first and I’m going to orient it like this again it doesn’t matter I’m choosing to do it like this I’m just

Going to do it like a centered scre screw same screws from before and just going to screw them in got that one screwed in now you just keep stacking them on and doing the same thing to attach it so it should just kind of slide on ooh satisfying

I don’t like the way this is sitting why is this crooked maybe we can like since we have like the supports kind of in we can place all of them and make sure they’re like aligned properly I don’t know if that would be easier why are

They all so different this piece is an inch bigger like half an inch bigger than all these other pieces and this piece is off too I guess they’re just all different sizes the Home Depot people cut it so we were trusting them to cut them accurately they did cut it

This is really crooked this this post yeah let’s undo that one so we’re going to double team it Drilling and screwing and just get all these stacked up on top of each other even though they’re not lining up perfectly oh well it’s going to be a little janky but hopefully it

Kind of just comes together in the end I don’t Know last piece oh last piece it doesn’t fit get your side first boom and then we’ll go like that boom ah and hit it hit it kind of shove it on there yeah sometimes it just takes a little Brute Force screw that in and then we’re [Applause] Done and voila The bottom of the planter with a bunch of logs and sticks and twigs to fill up space and um help with drainage and ation so we got some big big ones I think let’s maybe not I think we can use that one put it at the bottom yeah yeah that fits Perfectly next layer luckily my dad had just red up some leaves so I stole these leaves from my parents house just some old dry leaves to again kind of fill up some space just going to sprinkle some of this in M fill in the gaps in between the

Logs I feel like a real Gardener time to add the dirt basically our wood and leaves mixture is about halfway and then the dirt will be the rest of the half the dirts should probably be a little bit deeper than this but hopefully this is okay we got

Our Vigoro allpurpose potty mix we got our additives that we’re going to kind of sprinkle in the middle but first we need to put like half of our potty mix in to get started so I guess we will just slice and pour so we got three bags of potting mix

In here now we’re going to sprinkle in some some manure some cow poop some manure this is black cow cow manure certified for vegetable garden mix it in this is earthworm castings plant food this was recommended by a family friend who knows what they’re doing we got blood meal and bone meal

Whatever that is just a sprinkling yeah just like a yum and then Pete Moss swagnum Pete Moss to retain moisture and nutrients and now we mix it smells really good you’re weird I want you to know that I know it’s cuz I grew up digging around does

Not smell good it smells like cure dirt blood smell the manure blood bones poop dirt worms you think that smells good it does it’s like oh outside now I know there’s like a lot of other additives and stuff and certain measurements of how you can make the best soil for your

Vegetables but remember that I’m a beginner and I’m just doing my best but feel free to leave your suggestions down below now we can top it off with another maybe couple bags of [Applause] [Applause] This got one done we’re going to repeat the same process for the other one it essentially took six bags of potting soil and then plus all of our add-in next up we’re ready to plant I have all my plants here from Home Depot I’ve got

11 plants I do want to hold out for a strawberry plant that I just haven’t been able to purchase yet so I think I’m going to leave a spot for that but I have 11 plants to plot here tomatoes peppers basil do you have any insight on best practices for placement yeah you

Got to leave room they really want like more than a foot but for container gardening like this I don’t ever bother to do that but I like to maybe put the Tomato since they grow really big on the outside corners notice also that you

Might want to do a to uh you you if they grow really big you’re going to have to do a cage so you’ve got to leave room for that these are jalapenos bell pepper cucumber this is a tomato I don’t remember what kind of tomato this is but

This is the hybrid tomato celebrity tomato and the lemon Boy tomato you might have to play around with it a little bit but since you plan on maybe doing a trellis I would put the cucumbers in the middle back right here and then put the other one on the other

Side in the middle back cucumber middle back herbs towards the front cuz you’ll want to pick them basil basil and then kind of evenly space out the rest so that’s tomato tomato tomato tomato pepper pepper another pepper my future strawberries I guess yeah let’s do let’s

Not put the tomatoes right next to each other cuz they’ll get big and bushy let’s do a tomato here and a tomato here and a tomato here and a tomato here you wanted room for strawberries it would be in that spot over there I guess with strawberries right there perfect Okay wow I have my very own vegetable garden now this came out pretty good I think our boxes are a little bit wonky but you can’t even really tell hopefully our soil mix is good and placement is good I’m excited to see these grow and

I’m excited for Z to kind of be involved with the process we can come out here here and water our plants and garden good news is it’s supposed to rain like tonight or tomorrow so that’ll be good for them and yeah hopefully they grow if

Not it’s not a big deal it’s not like I’m relying on these for sustenance it’s just like a fun activity that I’ve always wanted to do and I’m thinking about adding a trellis to the back of them just so that for some of these climbing plants they have something to

Climb onto but that’ll have to be phase two so stay tuned