Here is a raised bed that my husband put together this weekend. It is 4x10 feet and 20 inches high. We put it where we had dug a garden bed in the past and there was a small depression in the ground.
The construction was very simple. The boards are screwed into a 4x4 inch post on each corner and have a thinner support every few feet (to keep it from bowing). The 4x4 is longer on the bottom and we dug out a small hole in each corner to keep it set in place. We put two coats of stain on it before installing it so that it would have some protection from the weather and would look more attractive than bare wood.
When it was in place, we covered the bottom with landscaping cloth and then placed landscaping rocks to a depth of about 5-6 inches for drainage. The pumice rocks had been used in flower beds around the house and yard when we moved in and we have been slowly removing and replacing them with plants! We also got 3 yards of mixed soil delivered, which was more than enough. I believe we have half of it left for leveling parts of our lawn and filling in other flowerbeds.
We are just going to plant veggies in here, things that we would normally buy. It will get full sun until late afternoon and should work great.
Great looking beds! I know you'll have great success with them, veggies love raised beds. A couple of tips for planting: Use radishes as a marker in between your rows in width. They germinate so fast it's easy to see where you left off planting. Think about which crops your planting where in the bed. You don't want your tall crops to "shade" out other crops unless thats what you have in mind. For instance I always plant lettuce, radicchio, spinach etc under the feet of my bush beans. They love the shade and the beans love the cool feet. Good luck, hope you get great production!
We just used regular doug fir boards, they are pretty thick. They were 10x2 inches, but dried to about 1.5 inches in depth. The treated ones were just so much more expensive. Cedar might weather better but I think this will last awhile. I might ask at Home Depot or where you buy your wood for their best advice.
The green grass is one of the reasons I live in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. We are still freezing here at night so it hasn't gotten really green yet. They actually grow and sell grass seed pretty near to my house :)
Awesome bed! I am printing this out for my hubby so he'll know what to do. I have a question - did you have to use any special kind of wood? Like "green-treated" or not? I hope that makes sense :)
Shelli in Wisconsin (I sure wish my grass was that green right now!)
Jess tell your husband he did a great job. I have been wanting a raised garden bed, but nothing has appealed to me until I saw your. Thank you so much for posting. Lots of luck with your garden.
This is a lovely raised bed. Good luck with all your veggie bounty. I like how you can walk all the way around it. My husband built me one but it is up against the fence, so I can't get at one side.
Jess thanks for posting this. I have been wanting to do a raised bed like this and just didn't know exactly how to go about it. Love the way yours looks. Thanks again.
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