When we moved in almost 9 years ago, my mom n dad helped me build this cute little raised railroad tie bed in the back yard. It was a lot of work, because they overloaded their trailer with dirt to fill it up (somebody somewhere in Iowa had a mysterious gash appear in their ditch), and one of the trailer tires popped under the load. My dad chain-sawed 2 ties in half to make the short ends of a rectangle. He had an extra-long drill bit and some spikes that he used to fasten the ties together sort of lincoln-log style (or maybe more like legos, where they overlap). They have one of their own just like it in their back yard, though they covered the corners in metal press plates mom got from her work at the newspaper. At any rate, we covered the bottom over with black silo plastic as a weed barrier and poured in the dirt. Presto! Instant raised garden. I use it almost exclusively as a vegetable patch, with the occasional herb or two thrown in. This year we updated our medicine cabinet. The old one was rusted on the bottom. Instead of throwing it out, I had my husband drill some drainage holes in it, and bolted it to the side of the RR ties.
