How to turn an old drawer into a raised bed for plants

I'm very good at recycling and finding new uses for old things- it just comes natural to me.  While I was cleaning the basement I came across an old drawer (the dresser it came from is long gone).  The lettuce I started from seed under florescent lights was just about ready to be planted outside, so I thought the drawer would make a very nice raised bed.  One problem I often have with my early spring crops is that it's usually too wet to get out to the garden and get them planted at the right time.  Usually I end up waiting until the garden dries up, and that shortens the time I have to harvest the lettuce before it goes to seed.  This year, by using the drawer as a planter, I can have the lettuce close to the house, and even move the planter around as needed.  This is what I started with.
 
Then I drilled holes in the bottom for drainage (otherwise the water would just sit in the bottom and the roots would end up rotting).
 
Then, to improve drainage further and make sure the potting soil won't block the holes, I added a layer of styrofoam packing peanuts.  I've used this method before in a variety of other planters and it's worked quite well for me.
 
Then I filled the drawer almost to the top with good quality potting soil.  Add the soil slowly or you'll have packing peanuts flying all over the place!  And a windy day isn't the best time to work with packing peanuts outdoors either ;-)
 
Then I added the lettuce- a variety of loose leaf and semi head lettuce (Buttercrunch is my favorite!).  I added potting soil around the plants as needed and gently firmed the soil around them.  I made sure the plants would have enough room to grow too. 
After I gently watered the plants I used two row cover supports and covered the whole thing with a lightweight row cover, attaching it to the drawer with clothespins and plastic spring clamps.  The row cover serves a few purposes: it keeps animal from eating or digging up the lettuce (and I've got all sorts of critters in my yard who would love a nice fresh salad!), and it protects the plants if the temperature drops below freezing.
 
Lettuce does quite well in cool temperatures, and so long as it's protected from actually freezing, it can handle pretty low temperatures.  I used the same row covers one year when the temps were down to about 27 one spring, and not a single plant was damaged.  Within a few weeks I should be eating nice fresh salad from a drawer- LOL!  Happy gardening! =)
-Michelle of CreativeCritters

Garden progress

Well, my garden is a wild jungle! A very productive wild jungle. I don't even have that many weeds, because they simply don't have room to grow! I'm still harvesting lettuce, yellow beans, green beans that sprouted from last year's fallen seeds, zucchini, yellow squash, and garlic. The tomatoes are still green, but there are a lot of them. I think once the nights warm up (it's been unseasonably cool lately) they'll start to ripen pretty fast. I have flowers on my bell peppers, and tiny baby eggplants coming. I just love my garden! Here are some pictures I just took last week.
These are my zucchini and beans, although there's a lot more where these came from. I've been picking beans and zucchini almost every day.
This is my wild tomato patch. The plants are taller than I am now, and I'm 5'8"! All I've really done is add some compost and a little organic fertilizer.
This is my garlic, with parsley and Borage mixed in. I planted the bulbs last fall, and they're getting ready to be harvested now. I dug up a few nice bulbs yesterday (I don't have pics of those yet). Let me tell you-this garlic is DELICIOUS! I've already used some of it on some baked chicken- YUM!
This is one of the garlic plants that formed a really cool flower at the top. Sometimes I just like to let plants go and see what they do. you can get some interesting results. I usually let at least some of my lettuce go to seed as well. I end up with lettuce popping up all over the garden next season.
This is the view down one of the garden rows. The pink and white flowers are Dianthus I planted last year. In the fall I'll plant them in the flower bed.
And this is some of the catnip I just harvested really quickly the other day. The stuff grows like mad! There's a lot more that I can get if I take a little time. I dry it on screens in the garage, then use it to stuff catnip toys for my own cats and my friends cats. Of course I always have to bring in some of the fresh stuff for Ozzy and Cedric- then I've got a couple of loopy cats for the next several hours.
This is a shot of my zucchini row. I have dill scattered all over the garden as well. It reseeds quite freely, which is fine with me. Not only is it a useful herb, but beneficial insects love the flowers.
And speaking of beneficial insects, if you want to make your honeybees happy, Borage is the plant for you. This pretty flower has attracted more honeybees than anything else in any of my gardens. Plus it's native to NE Ohio, so it does really well here. this is the first year I planted it, but it's supposed to be a self sowing plant, so I should have Borage for years to come.
This is a shot down my eggplant row. An absolute jungle!
And this is an eggplant flower- isn't it gorgeous! You could grow these for the flowers alone. I should be able to harvest eggplants by the end of the month. I used no chemicals or pesticides on any of this, and to be honest, I haven't had the chance to spend a whole lot of time in the garden this year (Gramma's kept me pretty busy). It's amazing what nature is able to do pretty much on it's own. I did have to spread some vole repellent yesterday. They're cute, but boy are they dumb! I was picking some lettuce and saw a vole, and actually pulled a leaf out of his mouth! I yelled at him to scat and he just looked at me. I could have picked the silly critter up, had I wanted to. Not that I ever would. Handling wild animals of any sort is not a good idea. I just got my vole repellent and spread it throughout the garden. It won't harm them, it'll just make them look elsewhere for dinner. So that's the latest happenings in my garden. Thanks for stopping by!
-Michelle of CreativeCritters