This evening UPS brought us the Link-a-Bord kit I ordered from Kids Gardening Store. (Link-a-Bord is British and while their site shows other kits and colors, I didn’t want to deal with overseas shipping.)
Julia was very excited about assembling it!
I opened the Link-a-bord box in the garage and Julia was eager to help carry the “plastic lumber” out into the yard where we wanted to put the raised bed. Because they are light, she could manage two or three at a time and was very pleased with herself over it. In fact, I think she carried all twelve boards out there before I was done unpacking and reading directions!
Once I connected the boards with the connector pieces, Julia helped me slide the dowels in the holes. These keep the boards from slipping out of the connectors and also help stake the bed into the ground so it doesn’t shift.
It really is a child friendly design — I selected Link-a-bord for that very reason. I think if Julia was older (9 or 10) she could have managed the whole thing on her own.
If you go the British website, www.link-a-bord.com, you can see the other sizes and colors but the US site for www.kidsgardeningstore.com/ only has the green two-tier 4×8 ft kit. I did most of the hammering but Julia did her corner on her own.
After we lay cardboard down at the bottom to kill off the grass and discourage weeds, Julia was so ants-in-the-pants to dig I dumped one bag of peat moss into the lower area of the bed.
I bagged a soil sample first though and plan to take it down to the county extension office tomorrow for testing. If it tests well, then I can use existing dirt as I dig out paths and make other planting areas to help fill this one. If not, I’m going to have to bring in dirt from elsewhere.
