written 4/13/2024, updated 4/13/2024

Overview

Materials and Cost

Garden Tools, Soil, Rock, Rubber Mallet, Gloves, Elbow Grease

• In comparison, Paver wall retaining blocks like, Mini Beltis 3 in. H x 8 in. W x 4 in. D Ashland Concrete Retaining Wall Block, need 96 total blocks to get 2 courses, but only sits 6in high. Would need 4 courses of pavers to reach a similar 12″ height (compared to the 11″ of the Frame it All system).
• Cost: 96 blocks x $1.38 = $132.48 (6″ height)
• Cost: 192 blocks x $1.38 = $264.96 (12″ height)
• Cheaper until you remember you need paver base, leveling sand, and to get almost 200 retaining blocks to your house. Then to heft them to the garden
• Pros of paver wall blocks: Won’t break if hitting with lawn mowing equipment or other rocks, bug and animal proof, easier to work with uneven terrain, can be replaced easily or moved/changed or expanded

Installation

Before and After

Preparation

Removing Rebar: the original, rotten wood was held in with at least 15 pieces of rebar of varying lengths. How do you remove rebar stuck in the ground? Turns out it’s really easy: Vise Grip Pliers.

Lock it on, give it several spins, then spin while pulling upwards. It really is as simple as that. Some pieces can be still stubborn, but just give it a few more spins, some back and forth, and nice steady pressure upwards.

Old pieces of wood and rebar removed, as well as some wayward patio pavers. Then laying out the composite boards, and the bulk of the entire job: leveling, fixing the bed plot, removing weeds and rocks, relocating any existing plants. Muscle and elbow grease, FTW

Assembling

Yay! Finally assembling the frame system, but don’t be fooled into ease! Now for the technical part.

There is one Stacking Bracket kit for every 2 boards. Making sure to alternate the up and down orientation of the brackets on either end, secure them to the boards using the little plug. Frame-it-All recommends either using your palms or a mallet to push it in, but you’re guaranteed to want to use a mallet unless your hands are made of something harder than mine (kept getting my palm flesh stuck between the plug and the bracket…) especially the more boards you’ll be securing.

I’d recommend attaching brackets to just enough boards for the bottom layer for now because installing the crossbars will mess things up if you try to do them all at once.

Following Frame-It-All’s instructions, it’s time to dry fit the lowest level together by placing the stakes in upside down. This is a super important step that you do not want to skip because it allows you level the pieces and see how it all lines up.

Similarly, it’s extremely important to dry fit the crossbeam stabilizing boards… I wish I’d paid more attention to this part because my pieces ended up juuuust a little too far in the final install and it was a pain to try and fix at the end (when you’re tired! Or at least I was with all of the leveling I had to do of the bed plot).

When you’re ready, it’s hammer time!

Even with it all hammered into the ground, this is the best time to double check your evenness and leveling. You can still lift the stakes and fix things. I had a lot of work to do in that department

And now on to the tricky part. It’s time to assemble the rest of the boards and brackets, but first, you have to understand the bracket orientation of the crossbars using the 4-Way Bracing Brackets before assembling the rest of the brackets to the boards

Dry fit all the boards again, and using the 4-Way Bracing Bracket kits, figure out the stabilizing crossbeam 3-way orientation. Attach the rest of the brackets to the boards after figuring it out. If you mess up, it’s not a big deal. Just use a flat-head screwdriver in the little notch and twist out the plugs

Now to set up the 3-way bracing brackets for the crossbar. You need 1 Regular Stacking Bracket, 1 Mid 4-Way Bracing Bracket, and 1 Top 4-Way Bracing Bracket.

Referencing the image above and ignoring the bottom level, the leftmost board has a Regular Stacking Bracket (bottom of stack), the crossbeam has a Mid 4-Way Bracing Bracket, and the rightmost board has the Top 4-Way Bracing Bracket (top of stack).

**However you end up orienting them, make sure the top of the cross-board is flush with the rest of the boards**

When you’re ready, hammer them all in! Keep in mind that hammering in the top might cause the bottom layer to sink into the ground a bit if you didn’t use any paver/rock base. You can just lift up from the bottom and fix it.

Yay!

Fix anything you need to, and then cover up the holes with the Finishing Caps!

Now, for some soil. I decided to add some rock underneath since the ground is basically all clay

ALL DONE. Sort of. I need some more soil.

Soil Quantity

In these images used 1.5cu. ft Garden Soil (Qty: 4) + 1 cu. ft Garden Soil (Qty: 4) + 0.5 cu. ft River Pebbles (Qty: 2) = 11cu. ft total

I think I still need another 8 bags of the 1.5 cu. ft Garden Soil before I’m satisfied, taking into account settling from rain and weather. Mulch will go on top

Instruction Manual

NOTE: Step 4 is only for 3 and 4 tier layouts