Eric: Hey there! Welcome to the gardenfork. Today, we are going to respond to viewer mail. We got a viewer mail that said, even though we talk about these raised beds, we never had a video on how to make a raised bed. And not everyone has carpentry skills that I do which are really, I am actually pretty bad carpentry. So, what we are going to do today is we are going to show you how to make a raised bed. It is really easy. You can do it. I can do it.
Your first thing is your choice of lumber. And I do not like to use treated lumber in the vegetable garden. What I have done with my raised beds and these have been here four years now is I coated them with linseed oil, boiled linseed oil. It is kind of gluppy, it is kind of messy.
Female: What are you doing?
Eric: I am coating the 2x12 with linseed oil which is a wood preservative that I think is less lethal than using treated lumber. So you can just use a rag or one of these sponge brushes but the sponge brush kind of disintegrate. But again, this is really simple.
And then for soil, I am going to get a bunch of composted manure about four yards of it. Look at your local newspaper, there might be someone that sells like kind of like a composed garden soil. It just depends on the area that you are in. you do not need to get tap soil. So, I will throw the Frisbee and now, we are going to work.
So these are 2x12. They are two inches by 12 inches. Actually they are one and three quarter by little less than 12 inches. But it is called 2x12, and these are 12 foot long. That is what I like my beds to be. And I am going to make the beds four feet wide. For each bed, you need two 2x12s by 12 foot boards. And then you need two 2x12 by four foot boards. So I bought a 2x12x8, coated it with linseed oil, and now, we are going to cut it in half so we have two four foot pieces.
Female: All sides with linseed oil?
Eric: Yes, yes! And we are going to build the box. I am going to show you how to secure it all, and then we are done.
Another option that you have, is if you have a problem with moles or voles, or things like that, is once you build the frame, you can cover the bottom of it with half inch hardware screen or half inch galvanized screening and that will keep the moles from coming out through into your raised beds. We do not have really a big mole problem here so I am not going to do that. But you can get four foot wide screening. Roll it across the bottom and staple it and you would not have moles in your beds.
Female: It does not help the bear.
Eric: No we need bear screening. All right, here we go.
Female: Here we go!
Eric: Here are our 2x12x8, and we are going to cut them into four foot.
Female: How many times we are going to measure?
Eric: We are going to measure once because this is an eight foot piece and I just need to measure it at four foot. Watch! This thing is the important part, measuring. We are going to make a mark at four foot.
Female: It is a stick.
Eric: It is a stick. I got a nail. I think I have a pencil or something.
Female: You really would. That do.
Eric: This is a straight edge. It is a 2x3 so I just ---you got your straight line. Always put on your safety equipment.
Female: Is that for the mosquitoes?
Eric: This is for when I go to the star trek convention.
Female: Put in your ear plugs. Opps, what!
Eric: It did not quite finish the cut. So now, we have our four foot piece and our 12 foot pieces. We need to put them together and make a box. When you are putting two pieces of wood together like this, you do not just want to drill from the one into the other. In other words, you do not want to drill from here into what is called the end grain of this piece because the screws would not hold.
Female: Round side in?
Eric: Right! So what you want to do is you can do a number of things. You can either use a piece of wood that goes in like this. Or, you can use brackets. These are angle brackets that they sell at the hardware store. So I am going to show you how to use both kinds, all right?
Female: All right!
Eric: First, we will make it easy. We
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