Spare Cedar Stock For Raised Beds

I have had this load of cedar boards and planks of various lengths and widths in my garage for almost two months just waiting for either me hauling them to the curb (my inclination) or for inspiration to strike for a new project.   They're leftovers from our fence installation and include some 2x4's a few 4x4's and some fence pickets/planks.   With all the thinking going into our #newoldbackyard this fall (see this post about pizza oven planning, this post for 'entrance' planning, and this post about the planning for a water feature for some of the latest on #newoldbackyard landscape design), I've been out there looking at how the sun interacts with the yard to see if I could find the best spot for a permanent vegetable garden and maybe even a greenhouse/conservatory/solarium.  In addition to the pure location planning, we've been thinking of putting in a full irrigation system, so knowing where and what the garden looks like/lays out like is important so we don't have to re-do the irrigation system once we get to the permanent garden. 

At our old place in Elmhurst, I built a really nice raised bed, permanent vegetable garden that used the space on the side of our house and was totally fenced in to make it a real space.  I'd like to replicate that in some way, but because of how our house is situated, it doesn't appear that having it on the side of the house is likely - so it will, if we build it out - end up in the backyard.  

But, back to our yard and the trees and sun.  I haven't been able to figure out just *where* exactly a garden would thrive because during different parts of the day, some parts of the backyard are in full sun, while during other times of the day, they're shaded.  So, it is almost impossible to figure out the best location without some experimentation.  

So, that leads me to think that building a few portable raised beds might do the trick for next year.  If I had a few portable raised beds on wheels that I could move around to see how they do in various locations, we might be able to determine where to build the permanent location.  

On the blog here back in March of 2012, I posted this photo of a Veg-Trug from Gardeners Supply catalog that I admired in the day.  And then earlier this year, I shared this photo I found that I really liked (now) for raised beds and could serve as some inspiration.  

And then it hit me:  I should use the cedar stock on hand to begin to build out a raised bed that I could put up on wheels of some sort that I can put out in the Spring to begin the location planning.  

I ended up digging around online and found these instructions for how to assemble the VegTrug.  I think I could use those as the basis for building the new version of the beds that I'd like to build, minus the triangle shape of the bed.  I could use at least step one with a little modification from the VegTrug instructions you can see below.  Instead of doing step two on a diagonal, I'd do it flush with the four posts in the corner.  

Then, add some heavy duty wheels, wrap the whole thing in cedar planks to both hide the inside structure and the wheels and we'd end up with something like the inspiration photo on my post here.  

I'm thinking something like these 10" rubber caster wheels would be able to navigate the uneven ground and allow me to roll them in/out of the yard to find the sun throughout the summer next year.