You've made your bed, now garden in it.

I know squat about gardening. No, do not excuse the intended pun, it is inexcusable. I recently decided that for my impeding wedding, not to be confused with doom, I would like to use fresh herbs as part of my center pieces. Then I thought "Oh wouldn't it be wonderful and symbolic and so weddingy if they came from our own garden that my fiancee and I grew together?!" Then, after I almost regurgitated my lunch when my unexpected sappiness punched me in the stomach, I moved right through it to "Oooh and wouldn't it be amazing if I also grew vegetables and pretty flowers and hopes and dreams too?!" Then I looked out the back window onto my concrete back yard. I think this is what the kids call a fantasy fail. However, I remained undeterred and decided that I would just have to make a garden, and that is when I researched how to make a
raised garden bed. This is an image of what I'm talking about for those visual learners. The picture is from the website, mine are not quite done yet. Yes, I started making them. Are you surprised to learn this? I certainly am. I found the instructions for this project to be clear and helpful and not overwhelming. The garden advisor did not account for a couple of things though.
1. Wood gets warped when sitting for a long time on a bottom shelf at Loewes, and this makes it difficult to screw into posts. It doesn't make a  real difference in the final product, but it is annoying in the process. I recommend checking your boards out before cutting and buying them.
                                                     2. Loewes does not cut posts so you will need a circular saw to do that yourself.
                                                     3. Maybe you shouldn't buy your lumber at Loewes

After I figured out how to make the boxes, I had to find out what goes in them. Spoiler alert- it is not love nor is it care nor is it your crushed dreams. It's a whole bunch of other junk though, according to whom you listen. Have you ever heard of lasagna gardening? Please watch this video.....Did you watch it? Is she not off her rocker? I am sure there are many lifestyle gardeners out there, I've been to Amish Country. Anyhoo,

this clearly is not the route for me. I did find many great alternatives and this is what I came up with. For a 6'x3' 12" deep garden bed, if you follow my BS methodology, you will need:
        2 inches of drainage stones for the bottom (3 40 lb bags)
        6 inches of topsoil with compost & peat mixed in (12 30lb bags)
        2 inches of a manure/compost blend (2 20lb bags)
No I am not kidding. I was shocked myself. Not to mention we made two of these suckers! There was so much weight that we could not actually fit it all into our mid-sized sedan without fear of our back fender scraping the ground. Apparently gardening is for people with pick-up trucks or the ironic hipster vintage Bronco. We packed enough into our car to get half of one bed finished. We will return to Loewes tomorrow. This is my vision. I will dream of it
tonight and deal with reality tomorrow. My garden bed is half full...of dirt and cow dung. How about yours?