Problems - Part 2 of 3

I want to describe a problem I had with one of the larger grow beds. When constructing the first grow bed I didn't really concern myself with the underneath support. I figured I would do that when I mounted it. With the second grow bed I made the support external to the bed and the mount because I didn't like the support for the first bed. It turns out that the support for the first bed was inadequate as I suspected.

After mounting the grow bed, I felt a little leery at filling it all the way up with rock, so I put about 8 inches and used that for a couple of weeks. It was holding up so I decided to put more rock in. As I did, I started to hear the crinking and crackling of the wood. Inspecting the bed I found that one of the screws on a support board had missed its mark in the center of a 2x4. I must have put the screw very close, too close, to the edge of the board and now it had popped out the side. Without this support the bed began to buckle, eventually snapping the the 2x4 and was endanger of total callapse.

I rushed to find anything to put under the grow bed to prevent it from collapsing. I temporarily put a series of 2x4's under many areas.


After banging in the 2x4's to push the grow bed bottom up there was still a little bit of a bow, as you can see by the photo. I drew a straight red line on the photo so you can more easily make it out.



Now I had to figure out what I was going to do for a perminant fix. Do I remove everything and rebuild it or can I salvage what I had? Of coarse I was going to try the easiest solution first. So I set out to salvage what I had by making support legs and cross beams with 4x4's.

Shown below in the photos, this is ultimately what I have done. In a year or two or three when I have to clean the bed out, I will redo the entire base. But for now, this will hold up nicely. Click to enlarge the photo for a better view.