I was able to build this 16' x 6' tiered raised bed in about 5 hours yesterday. It cost me about $150 in materials (12 4"x4"x8', 6 4"x6"x8", 12 24" rebars, 10 8" decorative metal stake pins). I anticipate it will cost me about $120 to fill it in with peat moss, compost and top soil.

We moved into our house about 2 years ago and there was only a tiny 5'x2' plot on the south side of the house to plant veggies. I did that last year and it just wasn't enough space to plant everything I wanted (plus the spot is so far away from the faucet). So this year I decided that I would utilize the space on the north side of the yard (which still gets lots of southern sun all day) to build myself a raised bed.

The problem is that our entire yard slopes downward away from the house. So I had to make the veggie bed slightly tiered. I also had to be mindful of the drain pipe which runs under the ground right in front of the arborvitae and the Wow! Internet cable which snakes it's way through the ground under the new raised bed. I found that digging up the entire cable was the best way to ensure I didn't destroy it in the process of building the bed. (The Wow! installer hand buried it only about 3 or 4 inches below the sod level last year. They said someone would come back with machinery to bury it deeper, but that never happened!)

I wound up adding lumber across the width of the bed at every 6 feet so that I would have a little foot bridge to walk on. That way I can get into the back and middle of the bed without walking and compressing the soil. So it's kinda like having three 6'x6' beds for the price of one!

So right now my husband and I are off to Menards to pick up the peat moss, compost and top soil so we can fill in the bed and I can plant out my cold weather veggies! So exciting!

The photos below are of the sod being ripped out (all done by hand so as to save as much soil as possible) and the finished bed (there are a few rebar sticking out because my cordless drill drained 2 batteries yesterday...so I'm waiting until it's fully charged so I can finish drilling the pilot holes today).