This was my first time constructing a raised garden bed area. When you're 69, retired, and have plenty of free time on your hands, this is the kind of thing that happens. Well for me at least.

From a 12 ft x 20 ft piece of property in front of a neighbors dilapidated garage — I had a vision & or a hallucination. Either way with lots of time, ingenuity, & hard work, I'm really proud of the finished project.

And imagine that! I've even started planting veggies. I think maybe in 10 or 20 year I might see a return on investment. Being a vegan ... maybe a little sooner.😂

I must confess, I wanted to go with conduit trellises from the start. But I guess we all have to go through our own process. I saw these black trellises on Glamazon & bought three. Fortunately only one showed up on delivery day. I built it, added black vinyl coated fencing (rather than the nylon netting that came with) and installed the first one. Cattle fence what out of the question. The weight of that alone would have crushed the rickety thing.

When I found out that the other two were lost in transit I canceled those. I took apart the built trellis packed it back up & sent it back. Ugh! Even after all that, they were ugly, not very sturdy, and I wasn't having any of that!

Next day priced out all the conduit, Maker Pipe fittings, and hardware & decided, I should have gone with my gut from the start. Ordered the Maker Pipe fittings in the morning, then it was off to Home Depot for all the conduit and hardware.

I started cutting pipe, using single conduit hangers & attached those vertical lengths. It took a few days for the Maker Pipe fittings to be delivered (which was expected). From there it was just a matter of cutting pipe, constructing the cages/trellises and zip tying the custom cuts of cattle fencing I had lying around from a fence project a few years previous.

As an artist & photographer I very much liked the juxtaposition of the very industrial looking trellises, the sleek rounded gray beds, and the coming deluge of vegetables that would be growing in them — and climbing on them. I even like the contrast of the gray beds, against the bare silver conduit & fittings. So glad I went the conduit & Maker Pipe route. Awesomness!

And needless to say ... these things are STRONG, and will be around probably longer than me. And that's a good thing.

I'm a very happy "Post Punk Apocalyptic Urban Gardener" & proud of what I've accomplished.

Now if only those veggies would hurry up and grow!

I also did a blog post about this project: Raised Beds And Spirits