Raised Beds for FREE!

Well, almost free.  I always keep a sharp eye out for scrap lumber in alleys.  Believe it or not, but in L.A., there are ally after ally full of pallets and other scrap lumber.  This raised bed was built out of free wood.  It looked good raw and untouched, but we thought it'd look even better if we had a color scheme in the Urban Sustainable Farm.

The kids and I took a trip to our local hardware store and asked if they had any oops paint.  Oops paint is what they call the stuff that was mixed by mistake.  It is usually pennies on the dollar and on a special shelf.  We found two gallons of paint that were in the family of the color we wanted, so we bought them at $4 bucks a gallon.  The colors were slightly different so we blended them in a five gallon bucket, at home, and painted an amazing 4ft x 4ft raised bed!  We still have a lot of paint to spare.

We are going to keep an eye out for more scrap wood and see if we can make a total of four raised beds like the one we just made.  My plan is to put them in between the five trees we will eventually plant.  The trees are not purchased yet so they raised beds will get plenty of light.  The way I figure, the beds will get a couple of years of light even after all five trees are planted due to the fact that the trees will be juvenile.


Let's do some math.  Four raised beds that are 4ft x 4ft equals 64 square feet of garden.  Then, there's the red zone that is 4ft x 20ft which equals 80 square feet.  Plus, the triangle section that measures 20ft x 11ft (divided by two) equals 110 square feet.  That is a total of 254 square feet of Urban Farm Land, not including where the trees are planted!