I am having problems with ants in my raised beds and in my patio (where I have several container plants/veg). At first, i just left them alone as they didnt seem to harm my plants. Then I saw them eating through the stems of my choi sim, and also a cauliflower seedling (they like brassicas??). At the same time, i noticed they were starting to farm aphids on my camomile, my sunflowers, and some of my herbs. And I got mad - very mad! I tried using cinnamon, using chilli powder, using bicarbonate of soda (all solutions I googled)... no use. Not even a dent in the population. Next, I bought DE and spread them all along their paths. No difference. In the end, I harvested all the choi sim and poured jugs of boiling water on them and where they congregated (be very careful of hurting the surrounding veg though!). I am happy to say that got rid of most of them :) I do this whenever they start damaging my veg too badly now. Cheap, easy and organic!I also have a couple of ant baits around the patio. This also works well for me. Its not possible to get rid of them completely and I can tolerate their presence fine if they dont eat and damage my plants too much. As Dave said, most of the time, ants dont really do much harm. I hope yours are not like mine!

My system works well for my needs. Unfortunately, I am not learned on picture posting - but will try to be as coherent as possible. My planters look similar to yours - I also have 9 in all. My only regret is that we didn't make them all the same size, life would have been easier - as far as the cages were concerned, best to have 2 for each box. I built PVC pipe frames - 2 frames to a box. The materials are readily available from Home Depot. The pipe is the usual kind used for moving water - about 1/2 inch size. The 3-sided corner fittings need to be 1/2 in. as well, and 8 are needed total. For each corner an adapter is needed because one side of the 3 corner piece is threaded (bummer), and a slide in adapter is necessary (not always easy to find). Also needed is a plastic pipe cutter (Home Depot), chicken wire, wire cutters, wire or rope for securing wire to pipe. The cages are about 3 feet high and covered with chicken wire - secured all around the pipe with wire/rope - leaving about 6 inches near the top to reach inside the cage and open at the bottom. Building the cage is not difficult, except for the corners - where the 3 cornered adapter is needed on each corner to secure the slide-in pieces together. (one side of the 3-cornered piece comes threaded - that's why). A quick glance will explain it. I didn't glue my cages - but plastic pipe cement can be used for that. Another piece of chicken wire can be cut for the top - I don't secure it - but I can drape fabric on top and around the cages - when planting young seedlings for extra protection and for weather protection. This is secured with either clips (ordered with the cloth) or with clothes pins. These cages work well for me. If all of the boxes are not in use at once, it is possible to move these cages from one place to another where needed - very light weight or removed entirely if plants aren't in need of protection. I also have used old rabbit cages - for smaller areas. These have bottoms taken out and are easy to move around. They were originally made with hardware cloth (Home Depot), simply by attaching end pieces together with wire clips onto the main body of the cage. The cages are simple to make, rolling out hardware cloth to size, bend to form edges and clip together. The sides need cutting to fit the main frame, and clipped. But I do like the PVC cages, and they hold up well year after year. But I would advise having the planters all the same size, to facilitate their use from one box to another. Just my 2 c's. Bejay

Wokney, I was under the impression that we could cover the grass underneath with cardboard or several layers of newspaper before we filled in the beds. We already dug up about half the grass in the spot already when we leveled the ground. You say most new gardens fail because of weeds... wouldn't breaking up the grass and tilling the existing soil increase the chances of exposing and sprouting some buried angry weed seeds? I'm pretty sure we have St. Augustine in the yard, and I'm not sure how well established it is. The homeowners (this is a rent house) said they resodded the entire back yard a month or two before we moved in (October or November '10). However, when we were leveling the ground, we DID have to break through a BUNCH of roots to get to the actual soil. I wouldn't be TOTALLY opposed to digging the bed into the ground, but I'm pretty sure my husband would be :( He hates digging. The soil here isn't terrible - I was actually pretty happy when we were leveling the ground because about every other shovel of dirt had an earth worm or two. But it is predominantly clay, and I feel like I've been fighting with clay my whole life since I was a kid helping my parents in the garden.

Hi John 1931, I am a quilter too, so laying out blocks is a nice puzzle. A picture is worth a thousand words, But here's a try. Maybe some index cards or dominoes, Lego bricks, etc would be helpful to fidget with (I used index cards). Lay out a square pattern to show the corners of the first tier, with the blocks making a kind of circle, like this. N N N D B O O D B O O D B H H H (3 letters make a block, the O's are just dirt.) If you now flip that layer over D N N N D O O B D O O B K K K B it will sit on top of the first layer perfectly, and stagger all the joints. Of course you can stretch the sides by adding blocks, but with this corner pattern reversed for each layer, you should need no partial blocks and the joints would always stagger. Just avoid the symmetrical layout: N N N H O H H O H H O H N N N That gets you in trouble on the next tier. Hope this made sense!