Building a better bed — Intern designs, builds, more accessible and cost-effective garden bed

Garden enthusiasts at the senior center are going to do a little less bending and kneeling thanks to a local teenager who put his wood-shop training to use as part of an internship he is serving with a local organization in the months before he heads to college.

Ben Carter, a 2025 Newcastle High School graduate, has designed and built a more accessible and cost-effective raised garden bed for use at the local community garden.

Carter undertook this project as part of his senior year internship with the Weston County Natural Resource District. His internship supervisor was his father, Caleb Carter, who is the district manager for the district.

In an interview with the News Letter Journal, Ben said that he performed typical duties during his internship.

“I did a lot of grunt work, like putting stickers on magazines and newsletters and different things like that,” he said.

However, he also enjoyed the opportunity to use technology to tackle more challenging tasks, such as creating brochures, maps and, of course, the design for the raised garden bed.

Back in 2009, the resource district and Weston County Senior Services partnered to establish the local community garden, which is located next to the senior center building. According to Caleb, there have been many requests for garden beds that are higher and, therefore, more accessible.

The community garden, which the district helps to maintain, is also facing the issue of deteriorating garden beds that need to be replaced. According to Ben, the design for the existing beds is “two or three 4-by-4 (timbers) stacked on top of each other,” so in addition to being less accessible, they are also costly to replace, considering the increased price of lumber.

Caleb assigned the task to his son, in part, because Ben had taken a wood-shop class each year in high school and had gained valuable experience in not only using design software but also putting designs into practice.

For the raised garden bed, Ben found inspiration from existing concepts to produce an original design. He then collaborated with his father to hone it into the finished design used to construct a prototype.

“(My father) was very impressed with (my design),” Ben said. “I made the design, and he approved it and helped me tweak it to make it right.”

Caleb was not the only person Ben had to please with his garden bed. Fortunately for the young intern, his concept was also well received by the garden committee members.

“They were also super happy with how it turned out,” Ben said.

Satisfied with his son’s work on the project, Caleb said that the only change he plans to implement is to scale up the garden beds.

“I think that what he came up with is going to be really functional and useful, too, for people in wheelchairs, who could also come and access this raised bed and garden there,” he said.