There are a variety of reasons to build raised garden beds, from poor soil to creating a more orderly garden space. This is a guide about building raised beds.
Length & Width: A convenient size is 4 x 4-foot box, because lumber is readily available in 4-foot lengths. This also allows you easy access to the center of your beds from either side. Set the beds end to end to create larger gardens (4 x 8-foot or 4 x 12-foot, etc.) or arrange them in interesting patterns. If you are planting vegetables, building 3 to 4 raised beds of this size will allow for adequate crop rotation. If the bed will be positioned against a wall or fence (accessible only by three sides), limit the width to 2-3 feet so you can easily reach the plants growing in back.
Depth: Most plants need at least a 6-12 inch root zone, so your boxes should be at least 12 inches deep to allow plenty of room for roots. Using 12-inch wide lumber to construct the boxes makes this easy.
Construct your beds on a firm, flat surface (e.g. driveway, patio, or garage floor). Set the boards up on their sides and nail the ends together to create a box. Use 4 to 5 nails on each board in an off-set pattern to help prevent the wood from splitting. If you're doing this project alone, it's helpful to brace one board against a wall to hold it steady while you pound in the nails.
Optional: If you line the bottom of a raised bed with chicken wire, you can easily control gophers and other marauding rodents. Cut a piece of chicken wire/hardware cloth so it's a few inches larger than the inside dimensions of your box. Lay the wire inside of the box. Bend the excess wire up the inside walls and use a staple gun to attach it securely it to the box.
Use a sharp spade to loosen up the top few inches of soil at the bottom of the box. This will help ensure good drainage. Fill the beds with equal parts of compost, topsoil, and well-rotted manure. Water well. Allow a few days to a week for settling to occur and add extra soil if necessary.
By Ellen Brown
I love my raised beds. It helps keep different gardens separated and makes it easier to keep weeds out. They can be watered separately, depending on what you are growing in them. Herbs don't need as much water as vegetables. Tomatoes can be separated so they aren't taking sunlight from other vegetables.
In the foreground bed (5.5ft x 5.5ft) is asparagus, parsley, jalapenos, yellow and green sweet peppers, carrots, radishes, lettuce and green beans. To the right is 3 tomato plants (4ft x 4ft). To the left (4ft x 4ft) is where I grew garlic (which is now harvested), dill and sorrel. In back of the 3 beds is my Herb area, also cucumbers and snap peas on trellises. The dill comes up from seeding itself every year. I pull out some. The rest I use for pickles and so the butterflies can munch on it. There are various flowers throughout.
By Melissa from Lincoln Park, MI
We were able to put these two 4 foot square raised garden beds together this weekend. It was an easy project for the kids to help with; and they will be able to plant whatever they want in them this spring.
The best part about assembling them in this way is that there is no real need for precision. If you drill the holes off by a bit or a couple of the boards aren't exactly 4 feet long, it isn't a big deal. The bed will still be plenty stable and hold enough dirt to make a great garden plot.
Making the garden beds 4 feet square would work well for anyone utilizing the square foot gardening method. They are easy to reach across and tall enough that they are more comfortable to work in than a shorter bed.
Total spent for 4 garden beds:
Total = $207.65 or $51.91 per garden bed
Cut your boards down to the proper length. The 4x4s are 24 inches and the 2x10s are 48 inches.
I bought the lumber at Home Depot, and they will cut it down to size for free. They used to charge $1 per cut but seem to have stopped doing that. I am not sure if that is a national policy or just local, but it sure saved me a lot of time and money.
The longer boards tend to be cheaper per linear foot. So, for the 2x10s we purchased 12 foot boards and had them cut into thirds, making them all basically 4 feet long.
Thrifty Tip: Check the bargain wood bin that is usually back by the cutting center. We found a bunch of four foot pressure treated 4x4s, that they were just getting ready to mark as discounted. They marked each as $4.01 then cut them down into the 2 foot sections we needed.
When I got to the cashier though, I noticed the 8 foot pressure treat 4x4s were $7.97 each, thus making my wood from the bargain bin more expensive. It was only $.04 a board, but I still asked the cashier how something from the bargain bin would cost more. She agreed with me and cut the price to $2.01 each. So all told, I got sixteen 2 foot long pressure treated 4x4s for about a dollar a piece ($16.08). Now that's a bargain!
Measure 2 inches in from one end of the board on all of the 2x10s and mark them there. This is where the screws will line up with the center of the 4x4s from the end of the 2x10.
Measure 3.5 inches in from the opposite end on all of the 2x10s and mark them there. This is where the screws will line up with the center of the 4x4s when it is butted up against the other 2x10.
At the 2 inch and 3.5 inch marks, measure across the board and mark it at 3 inches and 7 inches on both ends.
Pre-drill the 4 marked spots on each board with a bit slightly smaller than the diameter of the screws you will be using.
At each of the 4 holes, use a 3/4 inch boring bit to create a counter sink for the washer and screw head.
Stain the 2x10s with a wood sealant. Be sure to soak the screw holes and end of the boards well. I like the natural wood look so I used a light stain to bring out the natural color of the douglas fir panels. This step is not 100% necessary but it will make your garden bed last much longer.
When the stain has had a chance to soak in on the first side, flip the board over and stain the second side.
Since I had managed to get pressure treated 4x4s, I only stained the cut ends on those boards. So if you have regular 4x4s, you should stain those at this time as well.
Once the stain is dry, you are ready to assemble. These beds will be heavy, so assembling them near their final destination will save you some backache.
Start by putting whatever is the ugliest end (there is always an ugly end) of one of the 4x4s facing upward, as this is the part that will be in the ground and not visible later.
Next, line up the end of the 2x10 with the holes drilled at two inches in and square it up with the edges of the 4x4. The easiest way to do this is to lay the two 4x4s on the ground and then lay the 2x10 on top of it.
Drive the screw, with washer, into the 4x4 through the holes you pre-drilled.
Putting together all four corners as pictured below was easiest and fastest way we found to put these beds together.
Once you have all the 4x4s attached so they are flush on the end of the 2x10s, the 3.5 inch ends will all line up with the 4x4 on the other side. Assemble the 4 pieces into a square and you are done with the hard part.
To add stability to the structure, you can offset the first board of the second level. This way, the end with the holes drilled at two inches lines up with the edge of a 4x4 that was attached at 3.5 inches on the first level. However, it is plenty sturdy if you don't wish to offset them. See photo below.
Once all the boards are attached, flip it over and you are ready to put it in place!
We purchased enough lumber to put four of these beds in our front yard. As you can see, the first two came together very easily in 1 day. I will write an update next week when I have them all ready to fill with soil.
By Jess from Hillsboro, OR
Small raised garden beds save energy, water, and growing medium! Looking for ways to conserve energy and not dig more than I have to, I covered a large rectangular area with old garden cloth, large pieces of corrugated cardboard etc. I then arranged old tires, sidewalls removed with a very sharp knife, on the area in an interesting pattern. A hole cut into the garden cloth inside the tire openings completed my new raised planters.
During the winter, I use the tires for small compost piles and in the spring I will fill them up with a mixed growing medium. In between the tires I will cover the area with wood chips so it is an attractive area, and the tires will almost disappear once the plants fill them up.
Source: I adapted my earlier experience with post hole composting and added recent information about raised beds and easy growing mixes from Mel Bartholemew's new edition of "Square Foot Gardening".
By Oldgardener from Thornton, NH
If you can get hold of some old car tyres, stack them up (whatever height is comfortable for you). They make great raised beds for flowers or vegetables. You can fill them part way up with old used compost and top up with new for economy. Great if you have trouble bending or kneeling.
Source: I found the idea in a gardening magazine years ago
By Jan from Grantham. UK
In the summer of 2011, I had raised beds made to accommodate a wheelchair and my short arm width necessary to reach across to weed. They have landscape fabric to control weeds on the bottom, a layer of sod face down, then layers of newspaper and leaves that will decompose and on top, regular soil.
I have perennial plants only, not vegetables. It is necessary to closely monitor the height of the plants because the beds are already three feet off the ground, so yarrow for instance, would grow taller than the house if planted here! I have saved the compost only for the bed that will host strawberries and I put chicken wire only in the areas I have spring bulbs. I am extremely happy with them!
By Cheryl from upstate NY
If you're short on space or the soil in your area is riddled by sand or clay, building raised beds may be the best solution to your gardening woes. You'll trade the time, money and effort required amending poor quality soil for maximum yields in a minimum amount of space.
Once built, raised beds don't compact as easy as conventional garden beds so they are easy to work by hand and never require tilling. In the spring, they warm up more quickly than regular garden soil, which is a real advantage for cold climate gardeners. Pests can be spot treated and fertilizers applied only where you need them, saving time, money and resources. Beds built tall enough reduce attack and damage by moles, rabbits and other small animals. If your building beds from the ground up, you can experiment with soils and plants not normally suited to your soil.
Raised beds easily adapt to any site and can be constructed in any size or shape-triangles, rectangles-even arches. The most important consideration is to construct beds to a height and width comfortable for working. The taller the bed, the more materials and dirt you'll need to construct it. Construct the beds to a width that allows you to reach halfway across them from each side. Most people can easily reach across 3 feet so a six-foot bed works well.
There are several ways to construct raised beds, but before you begin, make sure to remove any weeds or sod from the site you select. It can be helpful to place a barrier like plastic landscape edging around the inside perimeter of the bed to prevent grass from encroaching in the future.
Bricks, rocks and stone pavers all work well for framing raised beds. Wood works well, but will eventually rot. Cedar and redwood are naturally less resistant to rotting than most other wood and will hold up the longest. Pressure-treated or chemically treated woods are rot resistant, but should not be used around beds containing food crops because their arsenic based toxins may leach into the soil. Old railroad ties are also suitable, but newer ties may leach creosote, which is harmful to plants.
No matter what method you choose to build them, or the shape or materials you use to frame them, raised bed gardening offers you space and crop versatility in a minimal amount of space.
By Ellen Brown
I'd like to see some pictures of various raised veggie garden beds you have made from recycled wood or other recycled items. The ones I see in books and on line aren't recycled items (but rather made of recycled materials).
What I have made works, but is rather "ugly". I don't want to buy the beds, or buy the materials, but am hoping to repurpose items already here on the farm, trying to be thrifty!
So, I am hoping some of you can give me some good ideas! I plan on going 100% raised bed gardening this year for my veggies.
Hardiness Zone: 5a
By April from NW MO
By gailk123
04/12/2011
Hi April, we were lucky enough to have old rainwater tanks on our farm that were rusted out on the bottom. My husband cuts off the top and bottom, then cut them in two, he puts poly pipe slit down the middle and attaches it to the rough edges with cable ties after drilling hole all around the edge. All my beds are raised now the more tanks we find the better.Hope you have these galvanized tanks in the USA like we have here in Australia. Happy hunting gail
Can you turn an old fridge into a raised veggie bed? I would need to put drainage holes in the back and lay it back on ground. What are potential hazards?
By Bec B
By Tapestry Lady
10/25/2011
Refrigerators are an environmental hazard that need to be specially disposed of, so turning one into a veggie bed isn't a good idea I'm afraid. Depending on the age of the fridge it might contain CFC's, mercury, and other baddies. Even newer ones have things you wouldn't want leaking into the soil. Better to see your fridge properly recycled. There are plenty of ways to make raised beds from reclaimed materials that would be a safer bet. Good luck with your garden!
I upgraded my boxes this year, bigger and taller.
By Melissa
Shared on: 07/02/2010
I am planning on making some raised beds in my garden this summer. Does anyone have any tips or can anyone point me in the direction of some plans to do this inexpensively?
Here's a compact raised bed with rich soil that has been "built" over 8 years of composting. The bed is made of pine logs felled for fire protection. The frame holds wire to keep the deer out.
Here is a raised bed that my husband put together this weekend. It is 4x10 feet and 20 inches high.
I am looking to find some free or inexpensive wood to build a raised garden. Other than Home Depot or Lowe's, any ideas where I can find this?
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