GARDEN ENCLOSURE VIDEO 2 OF 3
Video 2 – How to Build The Raised Beds
Cut, assemble, stain and level the raised beds that will support the fence and help block smaller animals from the garden.
Quick Access Video Guide
* Select a topic to jump directly to that part of the video.
0:36 Set up the miter-saw station
Support long lumber, align the table fences and use a stop block that will not trap sawdust.
3:00 Prefinish hidden faces and cut ends
Protect wood surfaces that will be difficult or impossible to reach after assembly.
5:24 Assemble the raised-bed frames
Build repeatable upper and lower box sections while keeping corners square and fasteners aligned.
11:36 Install braces and join sections
Add centre supports, connect the bed components and prepare strong attachment points for the fence.
16:45 Attach chicken wire under the beds
Create an under-bed barrier while leaving enough flexibility to follow the prepared ground.
20:25 Lay out elevations with a laser
Use the reference grade to plan where the modular beds remain level and where the layout steps.
23:15 Position beds and landscape fabric
Fit the box sections on the site and place fabric where it supports the final garden layout.
25:15 Level with a jig and refine the ground
Use Henry’s leveling jig, then apply lessons learned to reduce unnecessary digging and rework.
Build Accurate, Level Raised-Bed Sections
Video 2 covers the construction of raised beds for the entire enclosure: repeatable boxes, protecting the wood, adding mesh underneath and a site layout to suit your needs.
1. Setting up a Miter Saw Stand For Multiple Cuts
Supporting long lumber on both sides of the miter saw and aligning the fences with the saw is important. An accurate setup matters because every out-of-square cut means your beds will not be square and this will effect how easy, or difficult it will be to plumb your fence posts. I also space the stop block away from the fence so sawdust does not build up and change the cut length.
- Confirm the saw is cutting square before starting
- Supporting the full length and weight of each board makes accurate cutting much easier
- Occasionally check board ends for square to ensure nothing has changed
- Keep sawdust clear of stop block as you work
2. Protecting Surfaces That Cannot Be Stained After Assembly
Apply the exterior stain or preservative to cut ends and board faces before the bed parts are put together. Once everything is assembled, those surfaces will be impossible to coat thoroughly and that is where would will rot first if not properly protected.
Even though the wood used is not pressure treated, use coated fasteners (e.g. rated for use with Pressure Treated lumber) to prevent premature rusting. Pre-drill near board ends where splitting is likely, install fasteners as per the videos construction details.
3. Assemble the Lower and Upper Frames
Build the raised bed frames on a flat surface. Check each unit for equal dimensions and square corners before adding center braces when putting the 2 bed frame together. Errors at this stage can make attaching and plumbing fence posts more difficult later on.
The centre braces help the long sides resist soil pressure and keeps the bed width equal. I recommend using GRK RSS screws for this as they have superior holding power (last enclosure I built I used these for the raised bed assembly too). See my review on these here
4. Install The Wire Mesh Underneath
Attach chicken wire or similar wire mesh to the underside of the raised the beds. Keep it secure at the edges but flexible enough to follow the prepared ground where it might be uneven – This will make installation and leveling of the raised beds much much easier.
The wire mesh keeps out tunneling critters, the landscape fabric prevents grass and weeds from growing up into the beds. Both are needed to ensure years of trouble free enjoyment. And don’t skimp on the landscape fabric – get the heavy duty stuff!
5. Check Your Garden Area For Level Before Digging
Use a 360-degree laser builders level to check the garden area for level and determine what needs to be dug up (or not). This will allow you to determine if any beds need to be stepped up or down and prevent any extra work as you install the beds.
- Set a reference elevation for your laser or builders level that works with the entire perimeter of your garden enclosure (you don’t want to move this once it is setup).
- Determine where beds need to be stepped up (if applicable) and roughly prepare the ground as needed
- Final height and leveling adjustments can be made as you install the beds
- Double check beds as you proceed and one final check before filling them with soil
FREE 24-PAGE PROJECT GUIDE
Download the Garden Enclosure Plans
Use the videos to see Henry’s construction methods and the plans for the project layout. The guide covers adaptable design options, lumber and materials, ground preparation, raised-bed layouts, post spacing, cap and rail details, bracing, gate construction and wildlife-deterrence considerations.
PDF · 24 pages
FROM HENRY’S TOOLBOX
Tools Used in the Videos and Henry’s Recommendations
I’m often asked which tools I used and what I would choose today. You do not need every tool below—or the exact same model—to build this project. These are the ones I have used, prefer or would personally choose for this work, along with the practical reason behind each recommendation.
DEWALT 12-inch Sliding Compound Miter Saw
Why I use it: The raised beds require many repeatable square cuts. I prefer a solid 12-inch corded saw for this production work because it has the capacity, accuracy and power to keep the parts consistent.
MAX SuperFramer Coil Nailer
Why I use it: I used BOSTITCH nailers for many years, but my preference now is MAX. I have found it consistent and dependable. A framing nailer is not essential, but it saves considerable time when assembling this many bed sections.
Makita MAC2400 Air Compressor
Why I use it: This compressor has been around for years because the design works. It has enough capacity for a framing nailer and has been very dependable for me. The tradeoff is its weight, so plan how you will move it.
DEWALT 360° Green Laser Level
Why I use it: I use a green 360-degree laser because I can see it outdoors much better than a red beam. It makes leveling the beds and carrying elevations around a large enclosure faster and more consistent.
STABILA Three-Piece Level Set
Why I use it: I have used many levels over the years, and STABILA is the brand I trust most for accuracy and durability. The three sizes cover most of the work here, from checking a raised bed to plumbing a fence post.
Channellock Fence-Tool Pliers
Why I use it: This is a simple specialty tool that makes fence work easier. The smaller head gives you more room to drive staples without hitting your fingers, and the puller is useful when a staple needs to come back out.
Garden Enclosure Video 2 FAQs
Direct answers based on the project design and Henry’s demonstrations.
What lumber can I use for the raised beds?
Choose the best lumber you can afford, cedar or similar woods are optimal but expensive. If you opt for SPF, use lots of stain or preservative (safe for garden use). Pressure treated lumber is not recommend for raised beds due to toxic chemicals (if used, line beds with a thick plastic barrier to prevent leaching into your soil).
Why finish parts of the wood before assembly?
Coating hidden faces and cut ends before assembly protects surfaces that will be impossible to coat later. Watch the finishing section →
How do I keep repeated raised-bed parts consistent?
Use a solid miter-saw support, verify that its fences aligns with the saw fence, and use a stop block that prevents sawdust from building up. Consistent square cuts make assembly and post alignment much easier and accurate. Watch the cutting setup →
Why is chicken wire installed under the beds?
It adds a barrier below the soil to discourage burrowing animals. Henry leaves enough flexibility for the mesh to follow the prepared ground if it is uneven (likely on hard rocky ground). Watch the mesh installation →
Do all raised beds have to sit at the same elevation?
No. Each bed should be level, but adjoining modules can step where the site grade changes. A laser or builders level helps plan for those elevation changes before extensive ground work starts. Watch the laser layout →
What is the main lesson for preparing the ground?
Establish the finished elevations first, remove only what is necessary and test-fit the raised beds as you work. Watch the ground-preparation lessons →
Video Transcript
Read the complete spoken lesson or use the timestamp links to return to the matching demonstration.
Open the complete video transcript
A lightly edited transcript of Henry’s spoken instructions. Obvious transcription and spelling errors have been corrected; the instructional meaning has not been rewritten.
0:36 Set up the miter-saw station
Welcome to Country Life Projects. I’m Henry Reinders. In this video, we’re going to start cutting up the lumber for our raised beds and fencing. As you can see, we have quite a bit to do here. We got 26 units that we’re making. And I’m going to show you a couple things before we start. And that is over here. We’ve got our miter saw table set up with a long section over here, short section over here. You want it very solid. You’re going to be putting a lot of lumber on here, heavy lumber. And you want to make sure that these two sections here are level with your miter saw table here. And you want your fences in line nice and straight with the fence of your miter saw. The reason for that is all your raised beds have to be nice and square. So that means all your end cuts have to be square. So that when you put your raised beds together and then we attach the fence post that’s going to go on the back of the raised beds. If your beds aren’t square, that’s not going to line up properly. So we want to make sure all the cuts are square.
Now we’re going to go ahead and we’re going to get all the pieces cut. Once we have them cut, then we’ll come back and I’ll show you a few things that you might want to do before you start assembling your raised beds. One more thing I’d like to mention before we start cutting our lumber. We have our fence here for the miter saw table. And we have our stop block. Now, quite often when you’re cutting a lot of lumber, if this block was tight to the fence here, kind of like this here, if you can imagine that being solid, sawdust can build up in here. So when that happens, it can offset it can change your dimension of your lumber because you may get a space. Let’s say that this is tight here. This is tight. But with sawdust building up, if this was tight to the fence, if sawdust was building up, it could push it out by an eighth of an inch. By keeping the stop block away from the fence, you won’t have that problem because the sawdust will channel through this section here and won’t build up. So, it’ll always be tight. That said, you may
have to check occasionally to make sure there’s no sawdust here, but it’ll be a lot less than if the block was tight to the fence, and it’ll give you much more accurate results. Okay, we just finished cutting all the parts for the raised beds, and I wanted to go over a couple things before we
3:00 Prefinish hidden faces and cut ends
start showing you how to put them together. All the wood we have here is what they call SPF, which is spruce, pine or fir and not typically Douglas fur, but balsam fir. It’s a little different than Douglas fur. And it is not the best wood to resist rot. It’s not bad. So, what we’re going to do is we’re going to stain all the parts that are going to fit together that you won’t be able to stain after the raised beds are put together. So that’s the all the ends of the end pieces. Here we have our blocking. So we’re going to stain the blocking as well. The long boards here are the fronts and backs of our raised beds. Those we can do after we put them together. And we also have 2×10 which go in the center of the raised beds. We’re going to be doing the ends of those. And with the sizing on these, we made all our ends here 31 12 in. The reason for that is that you can get three pieces out of an 8t 2×8 or 2×10 depending on what you’re using. But for us, we’re using 2×8.
And for the 2x8s over here, for our long boards, for the fronts and the backs, we made those 93 12. And if you look at uh if you watch our intro video, you’ll see why we did that. I explain why we made them a little bit shorter than 8 ft. So, we’re going to do the uh assembly next, and I’ll show you what you need to know there. One more thing before we start assembling. We have stacked all our lumber, the parts that we’re going to be painting the ends on, uh nice and even here so that we can paint the whole works in one shot here. And we’ve done our blocking over here. We also have our middle supports down there. And it makes it really easy because you can stain the whole works really quickly. And once this is done, then we can put them together. And we know the ends here are protected. But this part here just makes it go really fast. We’re getting ready here to start putting together the uh raised beds. We have two sections.
5:24 Assemble the raised-bed frames
We have a bottom and we have a top. And we’re going to start with the bottom sections. Now, if you’ve been watching the videos, you’ll noticed that this lumber looks very heavy, a lot heavier than what you’re likely to find at Home Depot or your local lumber yard. And it’s actually a full 2 in by a full 8 in for the beds. And with normal lumber, which is inch and 1/2 by 7 and 1/2 for 2×8, you’re going to be wanting to use galvanized nails. These are going to be going in our air nailer, which we have right here. And these are 3 and a/4. That’s ideal for uh standard lumber, which is inch and a half thick. For these, it’s not quite heavy enough, but we’re going to add we’re going to manually nail in longer nails after. So, we’re just going to be using these to hold it together in the interimm. But for most of you out there, 3 and a/4 galvanized spirals will be the best. And if you we’re using an air nailer for this project. If you don’t have an air nailer,
then you can still get the galvanized spirals. And I highly recommend that if you’re going to nail it by hand. If you’re going to screw these together, make sure you go with a longer screw, 3 and 1/2 to 4 in screw. Make sure they’re coated so that they resist all the moisture that you’re going to have in a garden bed. And so that said, that’s our equipment and our nails out of the way. I’m going to move this. Now, we’re working on a flat table here. And we’re actually assembling these upside down so that the upper bed is actually going to be sitting on top of this part of this bed here. So any differences in the lumber width, which you occasionally will get. And you can see it here on the corner. This piece is a little higher than this piece here. But at the bottom where it’s sitting on the table, it’s flush. So when we put the when we turn this over and we put the top part of the garden bed on top of this that they’re going to be sitting nice
and tight. So this joint in here won’t have any spaces. And we’re also going to be because we’re building these upside down and if you watch the intro video I will have explained what these are for. We have these pieces here that’ll be going on the bottoms. And these once this is done, this is what’s going to carry some of the weight of the soil and hold the beds down, which will give you some strength. And the other thing about this being on both ends of the garden bed is that these are square. So when you put these in and they’re tight to this piece along here, tight here, it’s going to help to hold your garden bed square. So that said, we’re going to put this together and then we’re going to put in a middle 2×10 in the center of the garden bed, but we’re going to have to flip this unit around once we have it put together. So we’re going to put it together, and then we’re going to flip it around, and we’ll show you how to do that part. Hey, one more thing. We’re using an air nailer. If you’re going to be using one, just remember that
as this is shooting through, you do occasionally get tiny fragments of metal that will fly out of the gun. So, you definitely want to wear safety glasses when you’re using an air nailer. Okay, that’s the basic frame put together. Now, these bottom pieces, these are the same length as these end pieces. You’re obviously you when you’re going through your lumber, you’re going to get some crappier pieces, might have a hairline crack in them or chipped edges. We’re saving those pieces for the bottom because nobody will ever see those. And the other thing, because they are the same size, they’re going to be a tight fit, you can just go ahead and hit the surface of these because this never gets seen. You tap them down. And uh you’ll notice underneath we have these blocks here. That just makes it easy so that you don’t have to measure how far down you want these to go. And we are keeping them down a little bit because when we put these in the garden,
we’re going to be leveling them out. And we need a bit of clearance here just in case these have to go down. We don’t want to have to dig the ground out where these are. And these blocks have been set up so that we have an inch. We’re an inch down here roughly. We have 2in material. You’ll probably have one and a half. So then you just take the total width here less that. Make your blocks that height. You can just put them on your table or your deck, whatever you’re going to be building on. Drop them in there and then you can just bang these down and use them all throughout your construction. Once you bang this in place and it’s tight all the way around, it’s ready to nail. Because these are square, your bed’s going to be square. And we’re using this table as well to help us make sure they’re square because it’s a 4×8 sheet of plywood. So, we can just double check that way. Once you got it tapped in place, then you can just nail it off, it also by putting this in this corner here. Not only does it uh provide that uh weight
uh on the bottom there for the soil to keep the bed down, this also reinforces this corner. So, when we nail it this way and we nail it this way, it’s going to help keep this from pulling apart. help.
11:36 Install braces and join sections
Okay, we’re going to be putting the 2 by10 center brace into the uh lower bed. Now, we’ve turned it over. So, you can maybe see if I move this piece, you can see these are our 2x8s here. That’s where our soil is going to be sitting on. And but to make this easy, what I’ve done is we want these braces centered. So what I’ve done is taken the center measurement minus half the thickness of the center brace which is a 2×10 and then took this distance here off which is 8 in. So whatever your the dimension of your lumber is on these bottom pieces and that combined or that with this taken off gives us our length here. We’re going to put these in here. And these are just spacers. I’ve made two. And I’ve used 2×8. So that when we put the 2×10 in, we can use these to keep them square. These ends were cut square. I’m also going to be putting a spacer on the bottom. Because we want the 2×10 to come up a little higher. I’ll show you why. So now this is sitting up off the ground
here, which is sitting up about 3 and 1/2 in here. The reason for that is when we put the upper half of this garden bed on here, it’s going to attach to here. And we’re going to be putting a fairly goodiz nail through that when we do that. So, for now, we’re only going to be putting a few nails in here because this requires a fairly long nail to keep it together. It’s It needs that holding power. But the main thing here is blocks here to bring it up. You can do this with every single bed you build. and these spacers to make it easy for locating the center piece and keeping it square. So, I’m going to nail that on and then we’re going to put this half of the garden bed to the side. We’re going to build the top and then I’m going to show you how we put the two together. Okay, we’ve put the upper part of the garden bed onto the lower section here. And you can see by us keeping these pieces flush at these points here that we got a nice tight joint here. That’s important.
You don’t want this leeching soil through here or water. Now, now that we have these together over here where our 2×10 is in the center, this is where we’re going to fasten it through here. We’re going to use a fairly long nail there. Probably about 4 and 1/2 in, maybe even 5 in. This is going to keep this from pulling apart. And on the bottom here, you see that we have more down lower here than we do up top. And with soil going in here, a lot of the pressure over time is going to build up near the bottom of the garden bed, not on the top. So that’s why we decided to put more down below here. So in the corners, we’re going to be using the 2 by twos here. And what they’re going to do, and you’ll notice, too, we’ve stained them on all the sides that we can’t get access to once they’re nailed on. Now, these are going to go in the corner like this. We’re going to nail this way and this way. So, in addition to this being nailed together here, this is effectively going
to keep your corners from pulling apart over time. Because with the nails going this way, it can’t pull that way. And with the nails going that way, it can’t pull this way. So it basically locks your corners together. And so all you have to do is put it in tight. Put two on each section for each 2×8. And that’s it. That’ll lock that together for as long as the box until it rots, I’m sure. So, we’re going to finish putting the rest of these on. And then just a couple final tips. With the corner pieces here, we have fairly thick lumber, so we use 3 and 1/4 in nails for both nailing this together here, the 2x8s, and also putting these in place. If you’re using regular 1 and 1/2 inch thick dimensional lumber and a regular 2 by two in the corner here, three and a quarter is going to be too long. It’s going to come out the outside here. So, you’ll probably want to use 2 and 1/4 or 2 and 1/2 to put these 2 by twos in place. Other than that, this unit is done. We’re going to finish building the rest of them. But, we got all our raised beds
assembled. As you’ll uh notice here, we have them all upside down right now. And we’ve stained all
16:45 Attach chicken wire under the beds
the bottoms of them. Not everything else, just what’s going to be on the uh ground so that we can finish the rest of it after we’ve installed the boxes. Now, the next thing we’re going to be doing here is keeping the uh we’re going to be putting on this chicken wire, 1-in chicken wire, because we have a uh real problem with gophers here. So, we want to make sure when these are installed that the gophers can’t dig underneath and up into the garden beds. Okay, we’re just uh going to put the chicken wire on here. There’s a couple things I want to show you. You want to use a staple like this for the chicken wire. Uh this is a 7 7/8 in staple. You know, they’re specifically designed for this. When you’re putting your chicken wire on, you see we have on the end here just this last twirled bit. But here is where you want to put the staple. Because if you put it here, that could likely pull through and you only got one strand here. If you put it here, then
you’re holding it and you get a much better hold. And you don’t want to put the staples too close to the edge. The design of these staples is that they’ll pull. They’ll veer out a little bit as they go in, which is what gives them their holding power. So about a/ inch, 3/4 of an inch in. and they’re a little awkward to use sometimes, but they do hold really well. So, uh, do don’t use your regular staples that you would have with an arrow stapler for, um, tar paper, you know, that kind of thing. Use the proper fencing staples because the other staples just won’t hold over time. And so we’re going to finish st I’m going to finish stapling this off and then I’m going to show you why we’ve intentionally kept this loose. Oh, one other thing. We did uh one test for on a different bed and we found that about every 8 in is sufficient for holding the chicken wire on and not leaving any spaces. I’m also pushing the edge of the chicken wire here to the edge of the box so it’s not sticking past. And that
way it goes down like that. and we go to put these beds in place and we have to take some of the soil out of the ground where the bottom here is going to be sitting on the ground, then this won’t interfere. If this was really tight, might make it difficult to level off the beds. And you’ll see that once we go down to the garden with these boxes and start installing them. And you can see we’re inside the edge here. We got a lot of play here and that’s that’s intentional. We have a very rocky, bumpy surface that we’re going to be installing these on. And if this was tight, that might pull apart or pull on the staples. We don’t want that. We want that flex in there. Once they’re installed and turned over when we put the soil in, that’s just going to push down to the ground. So, if you have a rough terrain that you’re putting these on, don’t make this too tight. These are now we’re going to finish all all these off. We’re going to get all the chicken mesh on the bottom or the chicken wire on the bottom. We’re going
to bring them down to where we’re going to be installing them and we’ll see you down there.
20:25 Lay out elevations with a laser
Okay, we brought all the garden boxes down and we’re uh we’ve laid them out where they’re going to be going. And as you can see, uh we have quite a difference from our low point here to our high point as far as level goes. And we have to take that in consideration when we’re going to start uh fitting them to the ground. We have to take out some of the ground to get them level. And so what we did first is we put all these little stakes in the ground here. And in the evening, uh before it was dark, but dark enough, we used a laser level. We marked these all off as a guide. Now, you could use a builder’s level or you could even use a water level to do that if your ground is substantially out of level. If you’re lucky and you’re dealing with a nice flat piece of ground, you may not have to do much. Then you could just start off by with doing one box and working your way around the enclosure that you’re building for your garden. So, what we’re going to do
next is we’re going to go over and show you why it’s important to make them level. Okay, we did a quick mockup here to show you how this is going to be assembled. We have our fence post over here. Could be 2×6. We’re also going to show you how to do a 4×4 once we get to the actual installation of the fence post. But right now, this is just to show you why it’s important that your garden boxes are put in nice and level. The reason being, we’re going to assume that this is level. It’s not, but we’re just going to assume it is. And your fence post will be up like this. It’s screwed to the front. And then we have the brace here, which is going to stabilize that. Now, if your garden box was out of level this way, a/4 inch over the 36 in that we have here, your fence post at the top is going to be a/ inch out. Uh, now you can get away with a little bit, you know, 1/4 in or so. You probably could because there is some allowance here that when we put the post in, we’re going to use the brace after all the boxes are in and all
the posts are in, we’re going to run a line down. And we’re going to use the braces to actually push or pull the posts over till they’re all in line. So, you can be a tiny bit out of level, but ideally, if you can get your boxes level the and your boxes are built square when you put your fence posts on your bracing on, it should line up pretty good. So, that’s why you want to take your time at this stage of this project. Make sure your boxes are level this way and that way. And if you do that, once you get to this part of the job, it’s going to be a lot easier. Okay, as you can see, we’ve put 1 in chicken wire on the bottom of the uh boxes here. The
23:15 Position beds and landscape fabric
reason for that is that we have gophers, lots of them, and we don’t want them digging under and digging into the garden beds. And uh we’ve also kept our center brace here 2 in up and our end boards here are about an inch and a half up. And our chicken wire is loose. And that’s important because the only thing we’re going to do when we’re leveling these boxes is we’re going to be digging channels where the 2x8s are going to sit into the ground and the 2x8s on the ends are going to sit into the ground. If this was tight, it might pull away from the staples here or the fencing staples. So, when you’re putting this on, if you do have a gopher problem, uh you want to use 1 in. Can’t get through that. And we stapled these about every 8 in all the way around using proper fencing staples, 7/8. You don’t want to go any smaller than that because it’s uh with the pressure of the ground on here after, which we’re going to show you shortly, it could pull away. But the way this is set up, it should be fine. And the next uh thing we’re going
to do is we’re going to show you how the effect of the ground pushing up on the uh chicken wire. As you can see here, this is a box that we finished installing. And we have this is where our channels are that we dug out to level the box. And this is the dirt we left. This is there’s a lot of roots in the ground here. And to keep removing everything would be kind of futile and a lot of extra work. But this shows by leaving the chicken wire loose that it just stretches up over that. And you can see we have landscape fabric underneath here. It all fits nice and tight. Fabric comes out the sides. And so this way you minimize the amount of work you have when you’re leveling your boxes. So next we’re going to show you an easy jig for leveling the boxes. When you’re leveling out your boxes, uh, one of the things you don’t want to do is to be
25:15 Level with a jig and refine the ground
constantly grabbing your boxes, putting them in place, chucking them for level, and then moving them away again. Uh, they’re quite heavy. Now, this is just a quick frame we made up out of 2x six’s. It’s the same outside dimensions as our boxes, but of course, it’s very light. We can just lift it up and move it around. So, what we’re doing is we put this in place for each box that we’re doing and then roughly mark off the ground. And then we can dig our channel and level this out here. Once that’s leveled, then we know we can just put our box in place and carry on with the next one. Of course, what we’re also doing is putting landscape fabric down first, then our box, then the next one. So, that’s a it’s a pretty simple little jig. You may notice too here, this middle bar here is 2 in up. That’s the same as our middle brace on our boxes. And that’s just to make sure that our ground level or we know what we got to remove for dirt in the middle. So, as you can see, we have all our boxes in place now. It took quite a bit of work.
I’m going to talk about that in a little bit. But a couple of the main things that I want to mention before we finish this video is you’ll notice we’ve put soil in all the boxes. And so once you have all your boxes in place, before you start your post, you want to make sure that the boxes are not going to move after your posts are on. By adding the soil before you do the post, you can make sure that they won’t move and it also makes them more solid when you’re screwing and nailing your post on. So that uh that’s very important. And the other thing before you start putting your posts on, when the wood’s out in the sun, it’s drying, you’re going to probably get a few boards that are going to start pulling away from these boards here a little bit. So go around before you do your post and add a nail wherever you see that happening. We only had a few, but it does make a difference in the long run. And one of the biggest things that we learned on this project is we did all this with a pick and a shovel. And the
roots in this ground were horrendous. So, it took five days for us to put all these boxes in. Now, if were doing it again, we would uh definitely get a backhoe or a mini excavator in here and we would level out as much as we could. So, that would be highly advisable if you don’t have if you have a property like this and you have a lot of rudy earth to move. Now, we uh would have liked to have used a a back hole here. We have actually a very high water table here. So, we could only take this earth down so much. But, if you have a property, more than likely, you’re not going to be building as big as this. So, the differences in your elevation probably aren’t going to be as drastic. We have 24 in difference from one end to the other. And what I would highly recommend, uh, uh, might be a little bit of an expense, but, uh, you’re better off to level the ground first and then start laying your boxes out and maybe even get a half a load or a load of coarse gravel where
you might need to bring your boxes up a little bit. It’s a lot easier than digging down and leveling your boxes out. And the coarse gravel is actually beneficial for garden beds. It’ll provide drainage underneath the beds as well. So, it’s uh highly advisable to go that route, not to dig down like we have here. The next video, we’re going to start the posts. And there’s a few different ways you can do that, and we’ll show you that in the next video.
Ready for the Next Step?
With the beds built and positioned, the final lesson covers almost all remaining enclosure construction: posts, braces, caps, rails, mesh and gate.