Please school me on all things raised gardens

Just make a box the size you want. I just made one with some 1x6, just doubled the size. I threw in some branches on the bottom and I had a big pile of dirt in my yard from some work I did. Fill that about 1/3 of the way with that, then I used garden soil from the store the rest of the way. Planted veggies and now they are growing. Don't make it too complicated.

Start small, if you enjoy it, then make more.

Desodding grass is a bitch. Doing it by hand isn't fun, but you have to do it, or go rent a sodding machine. You can't leave the grass there and killing it takes forever, and then you have chemicals in the ground where you're trying to grow vegetables.
You can be a doofus like me and actually desod it by hand and roll up the sod to go put it somewhere else, or simply just dig up the grass/soil about 4-6" deep not caring about keeping the sod. One of those is a lot easier than the other.

I've got quite a few raised beds now, and just added two more in the last 2 weeks. 2x8's or 2x10's is more than enough. If you just want one row, it needs to be about 20" wide. Make sure you put it somewhere that gets a good bit of sun. Make sure you have room to walk around the beds to pick the vegetables. I've really enjoyed having two seperate raised beds seperated by a walk way inbetween them and then building a trellis between them so things like cucumbers and beans can grow up them and you can walk underneath it.

If you have a dog, there's a really good chance he's going to love this new fresh soil and will dig all up in it.

I originally bought the bagged raised garden mix from Cleggs that's from LSU. That gets expensive though. It's like $8 for a 1 cubic foot, when you can get a yard of garden soil dumped into the back of your truck for $45 (27 cubic feet).
It's not hard to calculate how much you need. just get your l x w in feet and divide it by 2 (assuming 6' depth). I put about 6-8" depth garden soil and then before planting will put a 2" layer of Black Kow. I'll also add some fertilizer to the garden soil and water it in well for about a week before planting.
I haven't used the bulk garden soil before, but I'm sure it'll be fine. One thing i noticed with it though is there's a ton of wood chips in it, and the soil can get a bit clumpy. Probably not a big deal for most crops, but if you're growing carrots or potatoes you want very loose soil. You can always add stuff later to help with that though. You're not going to get those wood chips or chunks in the bagged stuff, and there will be more sand in the bagged stuff so it's a good bit more ideal.
So if you don't care about spending extra money, then go with the raised soil bags. I still put the 2" layer of Black Kow on top of that as well before every planting.

If you're in South Louisiana, go get the LSU fruit and vegetable garden booklet.



and yes you're going to want to run some water to them for automatic watering. Last summer if you weren't watering your vegetables 2-3 times a day during the day, they were going to die b/c it was so hot and we weren't getting any rain.
I just dug a simple trench and buried a garden hose to my raised beds, just used PVC at the garden to connect to the hose and then have a faucet that i can attach an automatic watering system too.

This kind of blows up the reason for your project, but I've never been keen on growing food in treated lumber. I know the newer chemical bath is supposed to be much safer (I think it is now copper based?)

I used a double stack of composite landscape timbers (plastic w/sawdust) to build mine and they've lasted 15 years.

I fill mine with mostly garden soil purchased in bulk from the local nursery + peat moss + course vermiculite + composted chicken manure.

I just built one 2 months ago in a rectangular shape with 2x12s, 12 ft long by 6 ft wide I cut one 2x12 in half. Wasn't worth it to save the $8 in lumber to do double 2x6 or any other crazy design. Half the web hates treated wood half say its fine with current chemicals. Frick it I just went with it.

My garden only gets 6-8 hours of sun, I don't love the location but I needed to cut down some mature trees to move it and I've been putting it off and off and off so I just went with it.

Tomato's are growing like crazy as well as everything else.

I'd say don't overthink it, just start and go.

I didn't kill the grass underneath, just went with it.

I got 2 truckloads of 1/4 yard each. Not quite enough, which was fine. But the dirt company mixed 1/2 "compost" and half topsoil. That's done just fine for me.

None of what I did was the best option, but its been great so far.

You can go as tall as you want, but keep in mind that the taller you go, the more volume you have to fill. I used 2 dog ears to make my borders and I find it to be a good height.

What ever you do, don't use fill dirt/clay. A lot of people will just get a couple of scoops of prepared bed dirt from a local nursery. It ends up a lot cheaper than the bagged dirt at the box stores.

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should i put cardboard down first as I have seen on one of the videos.

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I did this with my raised beds and it has worked well. I laid it right on top of the grass. I have a hybrid bermuda grass which is pretty aggressive and it has only poked through at the very edges of my beds. Which leads me to my next point...

Extend the cardboard past the bed edge and cover with mulch, gravel, or something else. This will help prevent the problem I have of grass growing up the sides. This will also give your wife the freedom to spray any grass creeping down low without worrying about hitting her veggies.

Something like this:

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Also, should it be built in a fully sun lit area or can a partially sunny and shaded area suffice?

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That depends on what your wife wants to grow. If she wants a typical vegetable garden, I'd go full sun or mostly sun with afternoon shade to give the plants a break from the summer heat. If you have to choose between morning sun or afternoon, always take morning sun.

This is all great information. Way more than I was expecting. I know it depends on the crops, but is it even worth building right now or should I wait until spring or fall to build it. I guess my question is, is it too late/hot to actually grow anything this year?

Get rid of the grass first.

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I guess my question is, is it too late/hot to actually grow anything this year?

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As TeddyP stated, you could plant okra & hot peppers if built now, on the other hand, I’ll often plant annual flowers in my raised beds, like zinnias & sunflowers for cut flowers, in mid-summer before fall-winter vegetable planting - perhaps your wife might enjoy that. So your call when you want to build them.

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Also great to have them built so you're ready to go next year. Might as well if you'll inevitably do it.

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This. If you have the motivation and time build them now. Learn what you can. Plant some peppers and maybe some cherry tomatoes.

Plant a fall crop. Then be ready to go for next year.