Simple Raised Garden Boxes (Bolted, with Mesh Floor)

Drill the bolt holes through the 1x8 sides and ends first — two or three per end, your call. Then dry-assemble the box around the legs with a pin nail per side holding position, NUMBER every board-to-leg pairing with arrows marking 'up,' and hammer a center punch through each hole to mark the legs.

This mark-through-the-hole sequence is the whole trick: the leg holes end up exactly behind the board holes because they were born from them.

Pull the dry assembly apart and drill the leg holes STRAIGHT and to the depth your bolts need — a drill press if you have one, a careful eye and tape-flag depth marker if you don't. Thread the sixteen inserts into the legs.

Depth matters: the source made sure the bolts could pull the sides fully tight against the legs. Test one joint — bolt, washer, board, snug — before setting all sixteen inserts.

Bolt sides and ends to the legs following your numbering — washers under every head, snugged tight. Enjoy the novel sensation of furniture-grade joinery on a garden box, and remember this comes apart in November on purpose.

Flip the box upside down, stretch the 24" x 50" hardware cloth across the bottom, and staple generously — wrapping the mesh around at the legs per the source's close-ups, since corners are where burrowers audition.

Space the six 1x3 slats evenly across the mesh and screw each end down with two screws — the slats carry the soil's weight; the mesh just holds the soil and repels the wildlife.

Flip upright, lay coconut coir, newspaper, or compost over the mesh to keep fine soil put while roots establish, and fill.

At 30" tall this bed gardens at standing height — no kneeling, no gophers, and no spring rebuild, because the bolts you snug next April are the same ones you loosened in November.