Building a raised bed

I've built 4 of these in the past, and so I decided these next 2 should be blogged about :).  The raised beds that I create are 10ft x 4ft and they are 10 inches tall.  I think that 6 inches would be plenty if you have decent soil, but if you're going to be composting a ton, or just adding new soil, then the 10 inches will be nice.  This article is explaining how I build them, and things that i've learned in the process of making these, and i'll have nice photos of you of my latest 2 i'm preparing up to go outside.

Materials Needed

• 2*  10inch x 10 ft boards - i'm using treated in this latest set, i've used just normal pine but i'm sure that will break down in a couple years (which was a great idea for me because my first few weren't very good)
• 1*  10inch x 8 ft board
• 1 box of screws that are 3 or so inches long
• 1 drill with a drill bit roughly the size of the screws you got

Price per box

Not counting the drill and what not the boards ended up costing me $35 per raised bed.  I always build them in sets of 2 because my garden is 20ft wide.

Things to consider

• Most importantly get boards that are straight.  Some of the ones i got were warped, and they still don't lay quite right, it's definitely worth the few minutes to go through and pick out the best boards you can find.
• Lowes, and I believe any other hardware store, will cut the boards for you, make sure that the 2 10ft boards are exactly the same length, and have the 8ft board cut down to 2 4ft pieces.  Just make sure that the 4ft pieces are exactly the same width.  The people at the store are happy to make the cuts for you, and they like making sure their work is good, it's why they work there.  Let them do it :)
• you may need to level out your ground, there are several ways to do this, look into an A frame level, or there's another one that uses hoses and what not which is probably easier to build I just don't remember the name right now :) when i build one to level out my land i'll make a post about it.
• Build the frame on a level surface, a living room works perfectly :).

How to build

This is harder to explain, and easier to come up with your own ways to do :).  The thing to pay really good attention to though is to make sure that you use a square on the corners to try and get as close to 90 degrees as possible.  I will often use one of the other boards because i don't have a square, but anything that you know is a perfect square (or close enough) can be used, just make sure that the edges line up nice and even.

Be sure to drill the holes in the side of the boards where you'll screw it to the other board.  When I didn't do this it made it extremely difficult to screw in, and worse split the wood several times.  Drilling the holes lets u line up things nicely and helps to keep everything even.  Make sure to only tighten the screws when you know everything is lined up nicely.  

My first time creating these I didn't follow any of these points, and my finished products were off by a few inches, which with boxes this large ends up meaning I can't get the boxes to be flat, and soil will often spil out the sides.

What does the finished product look like?

(insert photos here when i find my camera :))