Front Yard Raised Beds

My back yard gets a lot of shade.  That makes gardening there nearly impossible.  The solution?  I put a raised bed in my front yard. 

First front yard raised bed along with container peppers.

The bed was built out of landscape timber and is 4x8'.  It worked out well.  As you can see in the picture, I was able to grow quite a few tomatillos in it.  I had other plants stuck in there as well, peppers, basil, and oregano.  But, it wasn't as much space as I would like. 

Normally landscape timbers are $3.97 at Home Depot.  I've been watching the ads and waiting for them to go on sale.  And this week they did!  They were marked down to $1.57.  So I placed my order online and went to pick them up. 

You can fit 8' material in a Kia Sedona.  You just have to drive with your knees in the dash.

Each 4x8' bed needs 9 timbers.  I make them three timbers high and each layer takes 3 timbers.  One for each long side and one cut in half to make each end.

I built 3 more 4x8' beds and one 4x4' bed.  I haven't stained them to match the other bed yet.  I'll get to that eventually.

The beds are held together with 8" timber screws.  I put one in the end of each timber.  This holds together the overlapping layers.  I'm sure there's a term for that building technique, but I don't know what it is.  Hopefully it's clear from the picture above.  

Now I just need to get them filled with soil so I can start planting!