I’m ready to try gardening again (past attempts did not go well) and I’m thinking a raised bed is just the ticket.
I’m handy enough to build it from scratch, but I’m wondering if the cost savings is worth the trouble. There are kits available that require simple assembly.
I know I can research and figure it out, but I’m interested in Dopers’ first-hand experience with raised beds. Particularly whether you have built it yourself, built from a kit, or purchased ready to go.
Build your own. It’s cheaper and you can tailor it to your wants.
My BIL built a raised bed for me, cost around $60. Like this but a bit larger.
They built themselves a massive ground raised bed. It’s about 20’ x 14’, C shaped. They were able to make it sectioned so certain areas are meant for certain vegetables (one small area deeper for carrots, another area a little wider with a trellis for beans and peas). It cost them around $140 for the materials, and another $80 for the dirt.
I had a raised flower bed made out of old railroad ties as I wasn’t concerned with “stuff” (creosote?) leaching into my food, same with using treated lumber. The big thing with raised beds is the soil composition. Being raised it will have tendency to dry out faster. Tillage is another issue as you can’t just run a rototiller through it at the end of the season. Initially a lot of work to fill the bed with soil, plus you may need to add more soil as it settles. Don’t over do it on fertilizer as it will have no place to leach out and will become concentrate in your bed. I am pondering the idea of a raised bed for asparagus which wouldn’t need to be disturbed once planted.
My BIL’s parents had several raised vegetable gardens. What I observed from them. Don’t make them too high, build a 3’ high planter and the vegetables with now be picked at 5’ or higher of you have climbing vegetables like green beans, etc… Don’t make the too wide as you will be reaching across. Can’t grow spreading vegetables like melons. Need multiple beds for crop rotation. They used them for about 6 years and then went to container gardening for the few tomato and pepper plants they wanted as they were getting older and couldn’t physically manage a garden like the used to do.
My final thought, good idea but not great, as more work than you think is involved in using and maintaining them.
If you’re handy with tools then you can build it easily, but I’ve seen inexpensive kits that won’t cost you much more than the raw materials. You will be limited to the kit size though. If appearance is important enough then maybe you’d want a kit.
How big a garden are you making? How high do you want these beds to be? To make them yourself in a minimal fashion you just need some boards and stakes to prop them up.
You don’t really need any kind of container around the bed if you can dig, the same effect can be accomplished just by digging a channel around the bed and any channels across if you want rows as well. Just turn over all the soil including the excess from the channels and you can toss compost material into the channels and deep water them that way.
Yeah, our kids’ school has a garden that has a bunch of raised beds that are about 3 feet high.
They’re a huge pain in the butt relative to just regular in-ground planting- they have to be watered a lot more, because there isn’t so much soil, and it dries out faster. The plants end up kind of crowding the beds. And as already mentioned, you can’t till it or really do anything that isn’t by-hand in them.
The only real advantages I see are that if you need something like a trellis, you can just attach it to the bed itself, and that they’re easier to deal with as far as bending over is concerned, being a little less than waist high.
I’ve done both. Building g your own means you get exactly the height and width you want, which is nice. My recommendation to keep them narrow, so you can reach all the way across if you’re sitting on one side. It makes everything much easier. (I find 3’ across is perfect)
Over fertilizing isn’t an issue, because you should be leaving the bottom open. The nutrients in your soil will wash out with watering, and the plants will use the rest. I always amend my soil with compost and organic fertilizer every year and never have an issue.
You don’t need to till a raised bed, which is part of the appeal. Pull out the spent plants, compost them, and amend the soil in the spring and you’re ready to go.
Also bought kits (the oldest has lasted nearly 20 years) and built them from safe pressure-treated lumber - do NOT use railroad ties.
Kits generally are limited in size and height and cost a bundle in larger sizes. I’ve seen nice ones that come with varmint fencing.
Raised beds save some work gardening, you can control soil amending more easily and you can work them earlier in spring due to quicker drying and warmup.
You can buy 100 gallon grow bags for less than 20 bucks. Cheap, no assembly required, and they prevent over watering. It’s what we use, but we are utilitarians and don’t really care about aesthetics that much.
Note: They are a LOT bigger than the ones shown in the description pictures.
OP, as you haven’t been gardening for a while and haven’t had a raised bed before, its possible that you might not like this gardening attempt either. I would suggest that you start off with small, cheap and easy. This will allow you to see if you like it, and also allow you to learn what you like and don’t like in a raised bed so you can make your permanent beds just how you want them.
I thought the latest advice was to cut the spent plants off and let the roots decompose in place? Not arguing, I love to discuss gardening techniques!
I suppose you could. I guess my mind is still in high desert mode (where I gardened for many years). Things don’t break down as easily in a dry climate. Might be worth an experiment now that I’m in the Midwest!
Point taken, but it’s not that I didn’t like gardening, just that I did not do very well with it.
My reason for considering a raised bed is that the only practical locations to place a garden in my yard are areas that flood significantly after a heavy rain. The flooding, I think, contributed to my lack of success.
I was giving you an out, Dude. Nobody likes saying “its not the plants, its me”.
However, flooding is a totally different thing and not one that I know much about. I can see why you would want raised beds, but am now wondering about the water wicking up through the base of the bed and how that would affect your plants. You might want to think about filling the bottom of your raised bed with rocks, pebbles and sand to help with drainage. Actually, you most likely want to not listen to me, but find someone who knows what they are talking about!
What do you want to grow there? I’ve seen pics of beautiful “rain gardens” that use plants that like wet feet. I would love to have such an elegant touch in my yard.
I’m thinking a raised bed that sits on legs, 3 feet or so off the ground; not the ones that are raised but still sorta at ground level.
The disadvantage that has me hesitating is that will limit my acreage (so to speak). Even the larger ones are not that big. I’ll probably end up with a couple.
All vegetables - tomatoes, green beans, all manner of peppers. Maybe one planter reserved for the 'maters, the other for miscellany.
Lots of time to plan. Winter’s just around the corner.
First, just because I’m a bitch at times, everything you mentioned are fruits. Fruit comes from the flowers, vegetables come from other parts of the plant, i.e. lettuce is leaves, potatoes and radishes are roots.
So now that we have that out of the way, LOL! I can move on to talking about your beds. I totally didn’t understand what you were asking about at first, thanks for the additional information.
I have a plastic bed on legs (bought at Costco about 8 years ago), its 2 1/2 feet by 5 feet and I have successfully grown tomatoes in it. As you said, not a lot of room to work with, but it is also 3 feet deep which gives plants root room. After we moved here, I tried to use it to raise Monarchs, but the milkweed grew all spindly, even though I thinned them.
This year, I used it for carrots and onions which worked out very well.
I like my ground attached 3 foot tall raised beds better, but the one on legs functions as it should.
How much water are you talking about? if its only a few inches, you might consider raising big-ass planters with bricks. I recently purchased some of these planters. They are large enough that I can grow bell peppers with them, but light enough that I can move them around if I think the plants want a different view.
Just thinking that might be a cheaper option to start with.
Oh, man, if you thought raised beds needed more watering, wait’ll you try growing tomatoes in a container!
O.P. does the area you want to place your veggies get full sun? Nearly all fruits/veg need lots of sun, so that should be your main placement requirement.
Does it flood because it’s low-lying, and the ground slopes down to it? A raised bed may be a good solution, since you’re essentially raising the grade anyway, but make sure there’s adequate drainage.
Prowl Craigslist for used shipping crates. I picked up 8 perfect ones for square-foot gardening for FREE!
Very sturdy crates, built on small pallets, reinforced with that metal banding. Just gotta drill a few drain holes, fill with some good stuff and plant away!
The cedar wood version looks nicer IMHO but, sealed or not, it won’t last forever. The resin one miiiiiight eventually crack or something, way on down the line, but it’s practically indestructible.
Is it gonna be somewhere highly visible? If it’s in the front yard, for example, I’d lean towards the curb appeal of cedar. If it’s hidden and strictly utilitarian, the resin may be a better choice long term.
I didn’t realize this was what you were considering when you first started the the thread.
If you’re looking at a cart or stand like that you can take your pick. Wood will last as long as you protect the feet where it will be in contact with the ground and protect the surface. Cedar will last longer than most other woods. I use Teak oil on cedar for outdoor use. For a longer tougher finish use spar varnish (urethane). If you get a resin planter like that it will last quite a while, but if anything cracks or breaks it’s usually a short ride downhill from there. Something made of wood can be repaired and more easily tricked out. Adding some wheels or casters would take almost nothing with the wood model.
If looks don’t matter get a big plastic storage container and screw on 4 pieces of 2x4 pressure treated lumber to use as legs. It will even come with a lid. Just poke some holes in the bottom for drainage.