The variety of flowering plants we have been putting down over the last six months has started to bare pollinator fruit.  There have seen a number of bumble bees in our yard, and of course our own honey bees have something close to snack on.  I thought adding some clover would help out.  I picked up a pound of white and yellow clover and got going on a raised bed garden.

I considered tilling up some of the back yard and trying to plant where the grass had been.  I might give that a shot sometime, but doing a raised bed garden seems to be more of a guarantee of success.  I picked out enough cedar to make two joined 4ft x 8ft raised sections.

12 foot board cut nicely down to 8 and 4 foot sections.  The corners and centers that tie everything together were made up of 4×4 pieces.  I went with galvanized lag bolts with washers with the hope that it will last longer than screws.  Time will tell.  Once assembled the thing was bigger than my garage, and almost too big to carry to the back yard.

Before putting it in place I gave everything a coat of waterseal to add a little extra life to the cedar.  Once in the backyard weed screening was stapled to the inside to form a sealed area.  This meant I didn’t have to tear up the grass or worry about it growing up into the bed.  In all a serious time saver.

A million trips wheelbarrow trips of dirt later and the beds were full.  I sprinkled down a few hands full of seed and mixed it into the top inch or so of dirt.  The picture below is about a week old with a few little sprouts start to poke through.