We used wood, hardware, and irrigation supplies sourced from Home Depot. There were many people who offered help in design, lending tools, or actual construction. Thanks to Bob from Home Depot, everyone at R&R, Jordan, and Ben.
We had been gardeners for 7 years at our first house, in a 1000 square foot raised bed garden. When we created that garden, we used a book called The Vegetable Gardener's Bible to help us make design and planting decisions.
One of the things that was central to that design were raised beds. We simply tilled the dirt across the entire garden and dug paths lower than the planting areas, putting the displaced dirt on top to make them raised beds. It worked great, and the look of the clovers that grew around the edges became part of the trademark look of that garden.
But, the stooping down to those "raised" beds combined with the constant battles with the weeds along the edges taught us to make some adjustments in our new garden. First, we would move on to box containers to avoid the battle with the weeds. Second, we would raise some of the beds almost 2 feet high to save our backs. We also theorized that the planters would also have warmer soil in the spring being up high in the sun.
