What's New Wednesday: Raised Planter Beds

Not a project for the weary, that's for sure. But my husband had the genius idea (and I'm not being sarcastic!) to build raised planter beds for bamboo, creating privacy within our backyard space.  Our backyard butts up against an apartment complex, allowing four curious neighbors to peer into our business. While I really don't notice (it's almost like white noise in a way), every house guest has made a comment. So, we thought we would rectify this naked feeling our backyard gives you. Enter raised planter beds.

What do you need?
PATIENCE!
A LONG Home Depot trip (actually, several)
And a caring, handy husband

Okay, in all seriousness. Here are the directions.

Material:
Corrugated metal roofing panels
Galvanized screws
Plastic sheeting
Wood (1 by 4 pine boards)
Dirt

Based on an idea from Fresh Home Ideas (see a similar version of the model here), my husband was able to dream up a garden and bamboo planter using corrugated roofing panels and wood. The steps are complicated but to break it down simply we...

1. Cut the boards for our planters. We did three bamboo planter boxes: two at 2ftx4ft and one at 2ftx6ft. The garden boxes are 6ftx4ft and 3ftx4ft. That's a lot of cutting! Luckily we were able to get some pieces already prepped for FREE at Home Depot. My husband did the rest - thank goodness!
2. Then, we assembled each leg of the planter boxes. We wanted the boxes to stand at 18 inches with a false bottom since bamboo is known to be invasive.
3. After we screwed together the legs, we made the frames for the planter boxes.
4. Once the frames were assembled, then we attached the corrugated panels to complete the planter box. Then, we shaved off protruding screw (or, to save time you could buy the correct screw length. Just a thought...) and stapled plastic sheeting.
5. Then, it was time to fill the boxes with dirt, compost and mulch. Warning: compost and mulch stink...badly.
6. Finally, we planted our privacy bamboo. The bamboo will grow 5ft-15ft to eventually cover the neighbors' windows, providing us our much needed privacy.

The garden process was almost identical (except no false bottom; my husband wanted to make sure I clarified this important detail). We planted various tomato plants, squash, cucumber, strawberries, jalapeno, red/yellow/green bell peppers, cilantro and basil. We hope to see the fruits (literally) of our labor in less than 50-days! But we have already used some basil on pizza yesterday - yum!

Here are some photos to catalog our experience...