How to: Make a garden

I got this idea from "The Man Cave" blog, so this isn't something I thought up, but works quite well I thought, and very simple.

Materials:

• MDF board (any size needed).
• Scrape brown corrugated card-board (any size needed).
• Paint: dark brown, tan, dark & light green.
• Elmer's Glue (PVA white glue).
• Xacto knife.
• Wax paper.

Step 1: glue the card board to the MDF board. Mistake I made was putting to much glue on the card-board and when it dried it warped the MDF board. Size of card-board and MDF board is according to your needs.

Step 2: Peel the top side of the card-board off to expose the baffle that exists between both sides. To help assist in this peeling, I placed a damp paper towel to soften the card board paper.

Peel off the top side of card-board that is glued to MDF board.

Step 3: I began painting using dark green for some crops growing but after an inch it didn't look right. Next I went down each mound top and laid down the white glue. Then I liberally sprinkled saw-dust over the entire board and let it dry (over night). To get lots of saw-dust I went to a national home improvement store that cuts lumber (lumber yard would also work) called Home Depot in the USA. I got for free two shopping bags of saw-dust.

Place white glue along each mound top and liberally sprinkle saw-dust.

Step 4: Shaking the saw-dust off after it had dried left saw-dust on top of the mounds which I then painted a dark green and later spotted the tops with bright green. Using dark brown I ran the brush between each row so it looked like the plot was watered, but I didn't like the look, so I used a small brush and ran it down the middle of the dark brown a tan line which happened to match the brown of the card-board. This looked better to me. Some areas didn't take to the saw-dust or was very thin and this helped make the garden plot more realistic. Those areas I left bare.

Painted garden plot.

Step 5: The edges of the plot was not finished, and to do so I placed the board on wax paper and ran white glue along the edges letting it drip down onto the wax paper and liberally sprinkled saw-dust and let dry for several hours. The glue did not stick to the wax paper. I then turned the board upside down to get rid of the saw-dust and washed the edges in dark brown, then later washed it with tan.

Finish off the edges with saw-dust washed dark brown, then tan.

Step 6: Spray the board with diluted white glue (1:1) and let dry.

Now the final step will be finding a figure that is hoeing to work in the garden!

Card-board can also be used as corrugated tin sides & roofing too for more modern scenes.