Hey everyone! As you saw from yesterday’s deck update, I’ve been spending a lot of time outside. Between that, the new vegetable garden, and the new shed build, I’ve been in a summer state of mind for quite some time. I’ve also kind of HAD IT with walking on muddy dirt patches (Georgia’s spring rains this year have been nuts!). With summer officially starting today, and with plenty of scrap deck boards around, I decided to hop in with the #scrapwoodchallenge and created my own solution for better garden maintenance. I’m calling it my “mini garden deck” !
My new vegetable garden bed has been a learning process. One part of that has been realizing that this area is going to get a lot of upkeep-related foot traffic.
So, as proud as I am of how well things are going, I have noticed a major drawback: frequent visits have made the inner triangle of the L-shaped garden bed a little dirt-rich… and grass-poor. I put down some landscaping fabric intending on eventually covering it with gravel, but then realized how well the leftover deck boards could solve the problem… without an additional materials purchase!
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- scrap pressure-treated deck boards
- stair balusters (other strips of scrap wood is fine, I just used what I had available)
- miter saw
- drill
- speed square
- pencil
- exterior screws
- plastic spacers (optional – see below)
- landscaping fabric
The deck boards I used are designated for Ground Contact, which is recommended for wood projects that sit within six inches of the ground. You can find more about that here.
HOW TO MAKE A MINI GARDEN DECK FROM SCRAP WOOD
START IN THE MIDDLE
Keeping in mind that this was scrap, I basically took the materials available. I bought stair balusters and wound up not needing them, and I’m kind of terrible about returning leftover materials. I used these as stringers for fastening the deck boards together. Many had been cut already to fit the floating deck (and therefore could not be returned), but some were long enough pieces where they could be reused.
Since I was kind of winging it, I placed the stair balusters on the ground, on top of the landscaping fabric and spread them out, fanning in a sort of triangle shape. These would be what I would screw the deck boards to. If you’ve ever seen a wooden sign and looked on the back, it’s a pretty similar concept (such as here and here).