The carpenter's daughter has no tools

A garden must start with some dirt. I had access to a 4'x5' patch of dirt in front of my coop building, but the soil was so impacted and rock-filled that not even weeds found it hospitable. So what's a carpenter's daughter to do but build a raised bed, right?

Tool 1: Hand saw. I went to the lumbar store to buy six 4x4s, a few dozen 6" nails, and brackets and screws. All straightforward but they couldn't cut treated wood for me. So, let's add a hand saw. "How will you get these boards home"? "I thought I'd carry them one by one. It is only 2 blocks.". "Leave some ID and borrow a hand truck".

Tool 2: Circular saw. The men loaded the boards on the hand truck. I was, just barely, able to budge it. One of the men found this as amusing as I did, and helped me home. As we walked down West Broadway in Soho on a Saturday afternoon amongst the Europeans with their high class dollars, I had time to contemplate my hand saw and these massive boards. I upgraded to a circular saw when returning the hand truck. I did wait until the tourists had thinned to use it, cutting the boards Monday morning, with a bright orange extension cord running across the sidewalk.

Tool 3: Drill. I managed to dig out a rubble of rocks with a garden spade so I could sink the bottom row of boards in to the earth a bit, and thus fortify my garden against wayward parallel parkers. A full size shovel would have been nice, but it was a nice day and I had my obstinance to keep me company. First row of boards now in place, I started drilling holes in which to sink the nails that would hold it all together. My rechargable 9V drill was dead after 5 holes, and I had 27 more to drill. Back to the store for a better drill.

Tool 4: Hammer. My hammar, like my drill, was not up to the job at hand. The head and shaft parted ways on nail #2. I was able to finish the job with one borrowed from a neighbor. However, it seems in particular poor taste for a carpenter's daughter to not have a hammar- I'll be back at the lumbar store tomorrow.

Without further ado, here is my raised bed, my $30,250k garden ($1500 a square foot for Soho real estate, $250 for tools and supplies). So at last, time get going with the planting.