Finishing Garden Boxes

After making our Garden boxes, here, we were ready to place the boxes in our yard. First thing first, deciding were you want them. 

I researched a lot on best places for garden boxes. I found that most places said that you want an east facing box that gets the morning sun (it is the best time to grow plants, not to hot) and gets at least 6-8 hours of sun a day.  

I decided to place my boxes next to the fence. That way the boxes would be facing east and would not get the hot evening sun. I did watch the area for a couple days to make sure it did get at least 6 hours of sun. 

Supplies Needed:

Shovel

Rake

Drill (Adding Solar Lights)

 I decided to leave a good opening (2ft) in between the two boxes and about 6" from the fence, this way it would be easier to weed/plant things. You will dig were your boxes frame will be in the ground. See the picture below. (Basically, digging a rectangle in the ground)

After you have dug around were the frame will sit, place box into the hole and level it. 

I read that you should have your boxes at a little slope. This way the water can drain easier. But you can decide what you want to do. I placed mine that they slope toward the fence.

Now your boxes will be ready for the soil. Picture from my window.

 Filling the Garden boxes:

We decided to buy some Garden Soil, pictured below. We had a hard time decided if we should buy all garden soil or do the half-half thing. After hanging out at the store looking at soil for about a half hour (yes I know we had a hard time deciding), we decided to do half and half. We bought 6 bags of 3 cu.ft garden soil (3 bags for one box).

After the boxes were placed were we wanted them and we leveled the ground. We layered newspaper on the ground to block weeds (can also use Weed Barrier Fabric, newspaper was free), saw the idea on pinterest. Sorry I forgot to take a picture.

Now its time to lay the soil. We opened one bag of the garden soil (for each box) and leveled. Then we placed topsoil that we had extra from our yard, about the same amount as the bag. We tried to mix the two soils the best we could without moving any newspaper. Then add garden soil topped with topsoil then mixed.  We repeated this one more time making sure we mixed the two soils together. After our boxes looked like this.

Adding the Solar Lighting:

Make sure your lights are working before placing them on the boxes. Drill a small hole were the screw should go in the pole (helps so the wood is not as likely to split). After that, screw the two screws into the poles. All done...

Planting:

Decide what you want in your garden, go to your local garden center and buy your plants. Make sure you see what spacing you need for each plant to decide how many. Then come home and plant your veggies.

We decided to plant #4 Roma tomato, #4 Cherry Tomatoes (little girl loves them), #4 Green Peppers, #1 hot pepper, lettuce and peas. We went with a salsa garden (things needed to make salsa) and I like having peas/lettuce. We got all this for less then $10... makes me even more happy.

Our garden is all done, we just hope we can keep it alive.
  Please ignore the grass/dirt, we are trying to plant grass, right now they are just starting to come up...

The lights give a soft glow in the dark but the picture is not the greatest. My camera does not do will in the dark. We really like having the lights on the garden boxes.