leveling dirt before placing bed

Hello. I'm completely new to this, and am anxious to start, but nervous about doing it all right. So I'm so glad to have you all out there.

I have tons of questions, but the pressing one I'm currently faced with is how to level my bed before placing my box. The box is built - 4x8x12. My bed has about a 17 inch drop in the space of the 8 foot bed. We've been trying to decide if we should level the whole bed (a lot of work), level just the area where the box will be and allow part of it to be buried by the surrounding land, or place the box on top and build up the bottom with extra wood. We are mostly concerned about allowing the water to drain away from the house. We don't want any water pooling around the foundation. I could sure use some advice from those of you who actually know what you're doing out there.

Thanks a million!
Tracy

In my opinion, with that large of a bed, I would build up the box. This would save your back! I leveled a 2x4 bed by removing sod at the end where it was needed which left that end half buried in the ground. This was only a small area and my back was NOT happy! Now my hubby would level the whole bed, but that is because it would give him the excuse to rent the bobcat again