EASIEST Raised Garden Bed Planter I've EVER Built

Now I think this possibly could be the easiest garden bed I've ever put together because I've taken it out of the pack and look at this. There's this one little tiny money bag like a change bag of screws and that's it. The rest of it just must sort of clip together. Could this be the easiest raised garden bed I've ever put together? Let's get into it. A lot of this is pre-assembled as well which is cool. I love that. The only problem I can see now though is these feet. They're only that high. They're only that big and they get screwed in to the base of this thing which is about 50mm high. So just over a couple of feet high but that means it's going to be pretty low to the ground and you know me I like raised garden beds that are nice waist height for me to work in. I don't like bending over unless I really have to especially when I'm gardening so that's a problem. In the USA they sell the short legs and the extended legs. In Australia they don't sell both options they just sell the short legs so I've made a mistake there. We're going to have to fix that somehow. I like how that just works. You can't really go wrong. Nice and easy. Maybe I'll just drop them in like that. You don't want to go too fast. Okay yeah nice holds good. And now this thing goes on and then I think that's it it flips over. Go on the inside yeah it drops in. Fits in nice and snug. That's easier than it's very easy. There you go there we go. Okay line it up. Straight down like that and then it locks into the side there. Okay that's nice and strong and now I know where the caps come in. These caps go in to the top of this here like that. Locked in. Okay I think this must go in this way. Oh yeah okay it can only go in one way. The refill thing uh that's of course so that you can see it looking from the outside. Uh gotcha and the water fill is just straight here on the inside. Same with this one but that doesn't have a gauge there's only one gauge because they flow between. So providing this is level you're going to get a good consistent flow. Yeah and this is how I'm going to solve the raised bed problem. I'm going to raise this up with this one piece of mesh here. I'm going to make a base out of this galvanized mesh and at the same time I'm going to use the top part of it as a trellis and I'll show you what I mean when we get out there. All right so I've got to bend this up to make the base and the trellis. I've already marked out how far I need to bend it. These two here so what I'll do is put that there hold on to that and hopefully just bend this up and that should work. Maybe I'll get a rubber mallet and we'll give it a whack. Yeah that seemed to work pretty good. Now that is going to be the base for my planter. I'm going to raise that up and this is going to be the trellis behind it. Now my idea is to use these Besser bricks on their side like this so water can still run through them but just to raise it up so that's nearly nearly a foot so that would make it this high it's about yep just a slightly maybe taller than this so that's it that's a good enough working height. Yeah yeah that's fine that's all I need. You don't want to be moving this thing when it's full so your best position while it's empty like this I'll get this as level as possible. It doesn't have to be like centimeter perfect. Just not way out. The handy thing is this thing comes apart so the top just comes off so you can clean it I suppose and this on top. You know what I've just noticed something it's bowing down the middle here. There's really need to have something underneath this because if we fill this up with water and dirt that's going to put a lot of pressure on the middle of this and will it sag inwards it quite possibly could. I found this old tile might be the perfect size just to slot in there give it some stability. That's about perfect it's about the perfect size give it a slightly more height too by about that much. Now let's secure this down the bottom here just going to use a little bit of this paracord you could use wire I suppose I can always adjust this later one on the other side there we go that should work. If this started to bow forward too much I would just put a stake down the back of this and then that's not going to move at all. Easy fix but let's not over-engineer it if we don't need to. What I'm going to do now is just put a little bit of water in it because the last thing I want to do is fill this whole thing up with soil and water and then realize the thing's leaking. So I want to put some water in it and make sure the sides are not leaking from those adjustments and also underneath here is not leaking out from that pipe that I put in. It should and I was pretty sure that I've done everything properly but you know let's not take a chance. I suppose I should put these level things in okay that's pretty good we'll be getting up to nearly max that'll do that will do for now and now all I need to do is just make sure it's not leaking it doesn't look like it's leaking out of the sides there no or underneath. Got some coconut coir here I'm going to use that as a bit of extra fill in it's a good medium to allow for aeration and absorption of water this stuff's pretty cheap and it goes a long way. I'm going to mix in some premium potting mix make it go a bit further you can use a cheaper brand or you can use a cheaper type of mix it just depends then the cheaper you go I wouldn't go too cheap in potting mix I've said this a million times the really cheap stuff breaks down and turns to slop especially in these self-watering type beds so you want at least a premium mix or a semi-premium mix that's decent enough you can add some extra things to it to pump it up and so it's not as expensive it makes it go further and one of those extra things is this coconut coir which I'll just mix in this will help with the aeration it'll help with water holding it's also recommended by a lot of self-watering beds and retail companies that sell these products like Vego Garden they'll recommend you use some in your mix and this will be a good base let's start filling this bed up this um this stuff has a good wicking quality about it too so it'll whip that water up be able to reach those plants roots I'm going to add in a little bit of volcanic zeolite it's just like perlite again this is just a lightweight mixture that absorbs water and it also lets oxygen move around the roots of the plant so it's kind of it doesn't it makes the soil less soppy and and stagnant it aerates it press it down just a little bit just a tad not crazy because I just don't want this thing to fall too much when I start watering it in and then have to put more stuff in it now put in some rock minerals just to deliver some trace elements and some extra minerals that maybe the potting mix might not have because the potting mix is generally an organic mix and it's nice to have some rock minerals in there to give those plants anything extra they might need. More potting mix and because this potting mix has fertilizer in it and it's supposedly 12 months worth and the packets are fairly new I'm not going to add any extra fertilizer on top of this I'm not even going to add any extra compost I'm just going to leave it as is and see how it goes assess the growth of the plants and if I think it needs more nutrients later I can always top water in some liquid fertilizer or throw in some of my own compost or chicken manure or my own fertilizers that I've made still just pushing down a little bit like not real heavy just so that I it's compacted down a little bit now I'll give it a bit of a water in just a little bit now top it off with some mulch this is a really good height I love it just an inch or so of mulch on top that'll do and I'll give that a little bit of a water in now too just to keep the dust down and just cement that on the bed so it doesn't blow off it's looking very nice now let's plant something in it I think we'll go with a few marigolds on the ends that'll look nice and also attract the pollinators and all that some bok choy in the middle easy to grow easy cut and come again it's a really fast growing Chinese or Asian type of salad crop or vegetable whatever you want to use it as and these Japanese yacomo giant climbing peas digger sells them now there's no shame in buying seedlings from the nursery or the store it's always good of course to raise your own seedlings and that's fine or to direct sow even if you've got the appropriate type of crop at the appropriate time direct sowing is probably one of the best things you can do it saves money and all that but if you're a beginner gardener sometimes it actually saves money to buy them from the nursery already at seedling stage because you're getting them alive you're getting them past that grow stage you're not paying for the seed and then paying for the propagation equipment and all that and going through that extra time so there's two things there's these might seem like they cost more than a packet of seed and which they which they do but for say five dollars you can get 10 or so plants and you easily make your money back if they grow to maturity and then you eat them and with the cost of peas in the supermarket you'll easily get your money back on them plus you're eating healthy organic produce that you grew yourself at home and you know exactly what's in it there's no sprays on it there's no supermarket sprays or pesticides or even martine or any of those supermarket sprays that settle on the goods there's nothing in it there's no systemic pesticides or herbicides or fungicides or anything on these things so all in all if especially if you're a beginner buying these seedlings at five or so dollars a quite good and you can get some really good specials as well of say tomatoes i've seen is a really good one they're starting to get too mature for the small pot that they're in so the nurseries will mark them down well if that's the case you can get a tomato plant that's heading towards maturity saving you several weeks of growing time and you can plant that out into the garden and get or you're behind because you're coming late into the season well instead of trying to sow seed and waiting an extra several weeks you can be buying them now from the nursery and that saves you that time and you can catch up on the growing season so there's a number of reasons why buying seedlings is a good thing obviously we'll put these climbing peas at the back there they're beautiful giant climbing i've grown these before they're lovely they've got this pink flower they'll go well here okay let's put the marigolds in first let's put two on each side of the bed now these have got four or this is five so you know it's not going to work got to split them up as best as possible there's two one can go there and there and these this one can go there and i think that one just part dig down and drop in simple as that then mulch back around it one in each corner let's do these snow peas they're two to a they're two in there as well so i have to be careful probably about 10 centimeters apart you know four inches or so gonna have to keep watering this from the top for a while until those roots get down can get that water and now the bok choy these are about 25 centimeters apart probably eight inches or something like that again have to separate them be try to be as careful as possible keep as much of their own roots as possible without breaking them now position them first probably two maybe could we get three to a row maybe yeah let's try it let's go three in a row and about yeah about that far apart doesn't matter if they're a little bit crowded and one last row here plant these fairly close to the peas because the peas are going to go up anyway and that won't disturb them too much because some of the root balls on these seedlings aren't very good i'm gonna have to make sure i keep the water up especially if you get a warm day because they can perish really quickly so sometimes these might need a little bit of a squirt of water twice a day to keep them alive until those roots get bigger and they grow down the fact that it's raining will help if it rains you know for a few days this week i won't have to worry about the sun too much dehydrating these seedlings but even though it is raining i've got to give these a water in just to settle those roots so and get that root zone nice and settled in with the soil around it nice and gently over each plant well you know i'm pretty happy with how this project has gone it was probably the easiest garden bed i've ever had to put together that's true but then i had that tricky bit of how do i raise it up i think what we've made here is good i'm happy it's a mixture of recycled materials and you i guess what i've done i think will work time will tell on the design and how this wicks up and as i get more experience with this type of material and see how it suffers in the aussie sun i'll let you know how it goes and what i really think of the actual way it works and also the materials i can see this type of design being a really good asset for a small home gardener or someone that has a balcony for a garden or a small courtyard those types of places and that's exactly what i'm trying to do here is mimic that type of setting small squeezed in and growing as much food as i possibly can in different types of containers so i can test them all out against each other well i hope you enjoyed this video if you did make sure you give it a big compromising thumbs up watering water up thumbs up and share the video around and subscribe if you haven't already thanks for watching bye for now cheers