Our back yard is a blank slate of weeds for us to design and reinvent. Last summer I played with making a garden maze. This summer I want to start working on our permanent plans--we're wanting to grow a forest garden, with lots of dwarf fruit trees and bushes. We want a shed with a path. We want to tear up our old concrete patio and add a nice brick or flagstone one.

So I've laid out our plans on paper, and I drew out three small beds for my three younger kids to have their own gardens. Even though we won't get to much of the above work this year, I wanted to at least have our vegetable garden beds in place on time for this year.

So last evening I asked my meticulous husband how he would make a simple raised bed, and together with the kids we built the first one in just a couple of hours after supper. It just needs a little more dirt added, but other than that it's pretty much done. We piled a bunch of pine needle branches on top to keep the cats and squirrels out.

The neat thing is, this one little raised bed adds such a touch of beauty to the barrenness of our yard. Our whole family enjoyed building it together, and we have such a sense of accomplishment every time we look at it. We also did not spend any money on it, but used materials we already had. We'll have to get more bricks to make the other two small beds, however.

If you'd like to make one of these, you can find the instructions here.