Fixes

A puddle sat between two beds for two days after a storm. I blamed the beds, then regraded the wrong stretch of path. Standing outside in the rain finally showed me where the water really came from.

A wet spring settled the ground under one corner of a bed until it leaned badly. A quick wood shim sank right back down. Here is how I actually lifted and re-leveled it with packed gravel.

Something kept digging into one corner of a bed overnight. A loose mesh cover did nothing. Here is the buried wire barrier that finally stopped it, and why the edge matters more than the top.

My thumb sank straight into the bottom board of our oldest bed while I was weeding. Sealing it over did not work. Here is why that board rots first, and how I actually replaced it.

After I swapped the liner and drainage layer on one bed, it started drying out within hours instead of days. Watering more made it worse. Here is how I traced the real cause and undid my own fix.

I noticed one side wall of a raised bed pushing outward while watering one evening. My first brace failed within a week. Here is what actually held, and what I learned about soil pressure on old corner joints.