Framing the Beds

I left off last time heading to the store.
Let me tell ya, Lowes loves it when I walk in the door.

It was not a pretty sight.. the weight alone I had to make 2 trips. I picked up enough materials to frame the pond, 10 beds, and decking material to cover that central walkway. I grabbed an EPDM liner and a bunch of sandbags.

Ah that youthful labor...

All kidding aside, my nephew did a great job digging out the hole and filling sand bags. He built the walls of the pond and did a generally good job in helping out throughout this project so far, but more on that in the pond post.

On to the framing...

I decided to frame it out with 2x6's in order to cover half of the barrel height but also to provide some anchoring for the barrels, and support so they don't bow with weight in the heat. I saw a neighbor who just used half barrels on top of concrete blocks with no support, a few of them look like Pringles how bowed out they have become in the heat.

In any case, since we have 5 beds per side and they average around 21 inches give or take for the barrel width a 10 foot run with 2x6 inserts to put between barrels would fit just nicely.

mmm.. look at that soy..

I used pressure treated 2x6's and galvanized 16p nails. With 5 beds there were 4 inserts and 2 end caps which I cut all at 3' a piece and the barrels *almost* slid right in.. however.. there is this ring at the top that is normally used with a barrel clamp on a traditional metal 55 gallon drum. This ring is 24" across making the barrel not seat correctly inside the spot where it is supposed to rest. A quick trim to remove that ring doesn't compromise the barrel and makes the width fall in line with the 21" average expected.

Now I also discussed this with my better half and we agreed that bending over to garden in low beds is not ideal if we could have them at waist high it would give better access to the plumbing and so on. To accomplish this we got the post hole digger out and sunk some 4x4 PT posts. 6 per 5 beds to create a sturdy base to rest the bottom of the beds upon.

When seating the barrels I added some cross bracing on the bottom with galvanized 3/8" x 8" bolts, then rested 2 - 2x6's to create rails to set the barrels on to support the weight of the rocks and water.

Pay no mind to the plumbing, big pile of sand bags, and partially finished pond. I stopped progress on the beds to work on the pond and some of the plumbing so that when I did seat the beds they would be ready for drains and rock.


Side note: If you stop to think about it, just 5 beds is 25 cubic feet of rock to fill in at a 7" flood depth and 10" bed depth (the 3" top layer that tends to stay dry and give a minimum air level). That is 0.5 cubic feet per 40lb pound bag.. now doing the math here.. 80lbs per cubic foot * the 25 cubic feet mentioned previously.. 2000lbs. With ebb and flow water this is like parking a Chevy S-10 on the rack to repeatedly fill up the bed and drain it over and over.. kind of mind blowing when you get down to it.


While I was framing and scheming I was also supervising the young lad mentioned above in his sand bagging endeavors.. which brings us to the pond.