I told you guys, in this post, that we finally got the garden beds in the ground this weekend. I also promised more photos and detail of how we did it, so here it goes:

We carried the beds outside and stood back to do some last minute planning as far as how we wanted to place these along the fence.

Then, we arranged them where we thought we wanted them to sit. After a few adjustments, it was time for the hard part: digging.

To mark where we needed to dig, Hubs used some spray paint to lightly mark the corners of the beds in the grass.

He then started digging a small trench with the sharp shooter/spade.

I was still busy with setting up the garage sale for part of this time, but as soon as we finished there, I ran back out to help him dig. Stripping sod isn’t fun, but it’s what needed to be done. I happen to have a lot of experience in this process from my landscaping work days (basically my summers from age 12 to 22).

After making a trench all the way around where the beds will touch the ground, piling excess dirt on the grass inside, we set in the boxes and checked to see where the ground needed to be deeper or smoothed out.

We wanted the boxes to sit down in the ground almost all the way up to the edge of the black plastic. We filled in around the edge with excess dirt. This will provide some stability.

After checking to see if they were fairly level, (We were going with a balance of leveling the boxes and making them match the lay of the ground/fence behind them.) we filled the sod and dirt back inside the beds.

We’re not worried about putting the sod back in the beds since they’ll be covered with about 2 feet of dirt, and that will completely kill any of the grass. Any grass that grows in these babies will blow in from the top, not creep in from the bottom.

Then, it was time to quit for the night and get ready to fill them up with dirt. Stay tuned for that update soon!

What do you think of our garden boxes? Would you have done this differently? Do you have suggestions for the outside of the boxes? Are you saying sweet things to help our future plants grow big and strong? If not, please do! We are!