Toggle navigation subscribe. Tutorial: succulentsandsunshine. Tutorial: simpledetailsblog. Some leftover boards from other projects are perfect for creating this vertical standing wooden planter. Use cable ties to join the wire together. These projects are all so wonderfully easy and will add so much style and design to your lawn and garden.

Cedar is a great choice for raised garden bed construction. Our local Menards had a great selection of cedar lumber, and we were able to Do It Yourself Garden Table 30 get a lot of the boards cut down to the lengths we needed and to fit in our car for the ride home.

We designed the box base to be 4 feet wide by 6 feet long by 10 inches deep. We also attached a layer of galvanized wire mesh and landscape fabric to the underside of the box. This will help keep out weeds, any existing plants or bulbs we might have missed, and even potential tunneling rodents. We poked small holes in the fabric for drainage, and John drove stakes into the ground at the corners and screwed them into the base once it was in place for stability. So far, so good! But ultimately we needed our raised bed to be more protected from the neighborhood wildlife which includes squirrels, rabbits, birds, and even the occasional raccoon.

We love having visitors in our backyard, but not when they eat our homegrown produce. The roof is basically a frame of thin cedar boards, with galvanized wire mesh covering the open spaces. The idea is to maximize sunlight, rainfall, air circulation, and beneficial insect access like pollinating bees , while minimizing intrusion from anything larger like pesky rabbits. To give us easy access to the inside of the garden bed for planting, watering and harvesting, John created doors for the long sides of the roof that hinge open from the top.

These are also made from thin cedar boards, to minimize shadows from incoming sunlight. First, I got several bags of compost from different sources such as mushroom compost, humus, manure, leaf, etc.

Then I raked together equal amounts of the compost, perlite, and peat moss on a large tarp in our backyard until it was well combined. As I mixed the soil and added it in batches to the raised bed, John stapled the wire mesh to the frame and doors.

To minimize the metallic glare of the wire mesh, we spray-painted it matte black except for the north side against the fence, which we left as bare metal to function as a trellis for pea vines. The black color helps the mesh visually disappear and absorb sunlight. After attaching the mesh, John attached the doors to the frame with galvanized hinges. I also picked up a couple of basic 5-gallon buckets from the home improvement store to use as deep planting containers, for growing additional edibles that are too tall for the raised bed like tomatoes.

I painted them deep green to cover up their utilitarian appearance and help them blend into the garden, put some styrofoam pieces in the bottoms for drainage, and filled them with my soil mix. I also refreshed some old metal tomato cages from our garage with a quick coat of spray paint. To get the most from our available space in the raised garden bed, I marked out specific planting areas with jute twine and garden staples.

If you enjoyed this post, please leave a comment or subscribe to our feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader. Great idea! It looks really nice, too. It would also keep the neighborhood cats out, which was a problem in our garden. We love cats, but I hated digging their poop out of the beds! Looks great! I love the layout of your yard, too. I draped bird netting over the beds we had at our apartment, which kept all the neighborhood animals out.

Like Lauren above, cats were unexpected nuisance! Hi Marti! Good question — right now, we are just using a length of scrap wood with one end propped against the crossbar on our fence and the other holding up the door. But we have plans to build something more permanent on the fence to fold in and out and hold the door open. Thanks for the detailed plans.

My husband is talking about finally putting in raised beds this year. I really needed this.. What a timely post. An Do It Yourself Garden Bridges Names attendee at a workshop sent us your link.

I am a novice builder who would love to pull this off. Would it be possible for you to send the dimensions of the wood you used for all of the parts? Now attach hinges and barrel bolts.

I used brass ones because they are more weather resistant than some other materials. To ensure doors open widely, I unfold the hinge to its openest position, and marked the holes on the frame. Then drill and attach the hinge to the frame. I used 4 hinges per garden bed cover 2 for each door.

After that, I attached each door to the hinges, and test to make sure it opens and closes smoothly. It is recommended to attach the doors after you place the garden cover on top of your raised beds, since your garden bed may not be completely leveled.

Once the doors were attached. I installed the brass barrel bolts , one per door. To attach the protective covers to raised garden beds, I simply let the cover sit on the raised bed structure. You can attach this garden bed cover by screwing it into the raised bed.

If you need to separate the cover from raised bed often, you can use a few barrel bolt to hold them together — which I learnt from one of my readers. I did some tweaking on the door hinges and barrel bolts until the door open and close well.

So that is it! I hope you enjoy this DIY raised garden bed cover tutorial and leave me a comment if you have any questions. This idea is amazing! I have to build something like that in my garden because I have got a big problem with animals that come and destroy mine work.

Last year I had a tough time as they destroyed all of my lettuce. Leaves were totally eaten, there was left only a waste! This year I decided to grow some but in containers on my balcony.. Thanks for your post, I have got it in my mind! I had the exact same problem as you last year — the squirrels ate all my pea, squash, bean leaves that I barely harvested anything from my garden. How did you attach the cover to the base? Or did you just set it on top of the raised bed? Trying to figure out how to refresh the soil in there if the cage is attached to the base.

Also with double door open you might be able to refresh the soil with the raised bed cover on. Hope that helps! I made something very similar last summer,to keep cats out, but they blew off in the autumn storms so need attached. Pondering how to do so whilst maintaining detachability. Cheers, Pete. You could try adding some bolt or latches to secure the bottom to the raised bed. Maybe the barrel bolts on the bed and the cover. That way you can detach them but they wont blow away?

I look forward to building a couple of these for a new planting Do It Yourself Vertical Wall Garden Test space. I do t have door measurement in the post. In my area ground squirrels and moles are a big problem, eating root veg from below. So I need heavy wire layers under the raised bed to protect my veg. Do you plan to install barrel bolts at the bottom of the doors?

Perhaps it would be good to do as the wooden boards tend to warp after a while. I might need Do It Yourself Garden Cover 2020 to install them in the future as the door frames started to warp a bit. Hi, This was very informative and I love your idea!

I am trying to build this for a raised bed that is 18 inches tall, 4 feet wide, and 10 feet long. I am having trouble understanding how to convert your measurements to mine.

Can you help me? I would like the cage with doors to be 5 feet tall. It would take some time but totally worth it.

Thank you for these instructions. Could you tell me what the spade bit is for? Is it necessary to use it, or can I simply drill into the braces? Not sure if this matters, but I did buy a pocket jig to make angled holes. Hi Sarah, so happy you are planning to build this cover for your raised bed! The reason I used spade bit is because 1. Am I missing these in the article, or does it not matter how long you cut them, as long as they have the correct angle.

I have two suggestions for anyone planning to build one. In my area, a suburb of Chicago, we have available coated wire screen, both chicken wire and square fabric. Field mice and small chipmunks can get through the octagon of chicken wire and the green coating keeps it from rusting over the next few years. Second, do not use a hook and eye style locking. You definitely need the bolt style you used.

Thank you so much for these clear instructions. Another benefit is that I can string tomatoes attaching the twine to the top of the cage, rather than individual cages for each plant. I added a waterproof coating to the wood in hopes that my hard work lasts longer. Thank you again! This is great. Just made one myself using your plans. Thank you Kelin for this post.

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