2026 New Garden

Year Built: 2026
Design By: Michael Lieske
Materials: Vego Garden Raised Planters. Sticks and Leaves and 6 Yards Garden Soil (Wasco Nursery) to fill, Weed Block, Landscape Stones (from North mulch area), Hardwood Mulch.
Joinery: Stainless Steel Bolts

Design

Laid out the new garden in excel (that's a shock!). Wanted to be sure to have room enough for all plantings and have room to maneuver between the raised beds. This caused the new garden to be a few feet deeper than the current which created a dirt and layout challenge.

Materials

Vego Garden 17" Raised Planters: 1-2'x6 1/2' with lattice; 2 - 4' x 8'; 2 - 4' x 10'; 1- 2'x8' with lattice; 1- 2'x 10'; 275 cubic feet!

Branches, bush trimmings and leaves from the fall clean-up,

2 Large bales of hay,

6 cubic yards of garden mix (Wasco Garden Center),

Landscape stones.

New Tools

Paver leveler.

Demo-Fall 2025

Had to remove the old garden. Removed chicken wire fence, removed perimeter landscape timbers.

Landscaping-Fall 2025

The garden area was not nearly level and, with the new planters, had to be extended a few more feet East. So, I tilled the existing garden, leveled it (planters need to be on level ground for the most part) and tried to extend it East to accommodate the new garden profile. Bought a paver leveler and smoothed out the new garden area.

The Planters are 17" tall and Kathryn wanted 6" of garden mix soil for planting so we used tree branches, bush trimmings and leaves to do the initial fill of the tubs in fall.

Fabrication and Placement

Built the "tubs" in the garage. Fun assembly although the size of the tubs created challenges, the largest being 4' x 10'. Simple Nut and Bolt assembly of all the panels, then stiffiners to hold their shape and finally a vinyl edging on the top to avoid sharp edges. Added lattices to two of the planters. Fun!

After assembly I was able to place all but the last two planters which I waited until spring since I needed more dirt. For the planters that were placed we filled them up with fall clean up branches and leaves and let them settle over winter.

Landscaping-Spring 2026

I bought 13 bags of black dirt from Menards and was able to extend the garden out level and far enough to place the last 2x8 and 2x10 tubs. Again, filled with logs and sticks. Finally, to get the tubs filled to 6" below the top we added more branches and 2 large hay bales that nicely and smoothly added a layer that was ready for the dirt.

Bought 4 cubic yards of Garden Mix (dirt+compost) from Wasco Garden Center ($59 cu/yd +$25 delivery). Painstakingly filled the planters using the Garden Cart but having to carry most of the dirt into the garden area to fill all the tubs. Turned out the fill compressed as the dirt was added and 4 cubic yards wasn't quite enough.

Bought an additional 2 cubic yards about a week later and filled the last planter, topped off the other planters and did a little more landscaping. Done!

Next I dug out the landscape stones that had been buried by mulch over the years, cleaned them up and replaced them. Next was tougher, I found the landscape stones buried on the North side of the garage leading from the driveway to the office porch which is now filled with plants. Dug each one up and moved them to the new garden area. Some were big and very heavy but repurposed them nicely. Kathryn laid weed block in the new mulch area in front of the garden and I placed the landscape stones.

Final step was adding the mulch to the garden area (had to wheel barrow it in) and the extended mulch area outside the garden as part of our annual mulch spring effort.

The Reveal

Great Project - Done!