This is GRM afterall: Raised gardening beds

I want to plant something for something else to do and eat up more lawn that I hate to mow. Anyone have a decent plan for building? Cedar is what is mentioned for "ultimate" build material, but F that, not readily available. TIA.

I went cheap and lazy this year, had some 2x12s laying around taking up garage space, and a bunch of half empty bags of dirt, so made a big rectangle, then split it in half, so it acts as two beds. Took all of 45 minutes, most of that looking for a screwdriver bit for my drill.

We have had raised garden beds for 8 years now. We built them out of plain untreated 2x12 wood. The trick is to completely remove everything but the dirt on the place you are building, then lay down a bed of permeable membrane, then put your box on it, then fill with soil and compost, leaving about 2" of lip. We used simple steel brackets on the corners to secure everything along with the wood screws. Also, make them skinny so you can reach the back. Our beds are 3' x 6'.

As for what to plant, cherry tomatoes are awesome. They have SO MUCH MORE FLAVOR right off of the vine, and you can get a giant salad or pizzas worth off of every plant every day! Snap peas, pole beans, and strawberries are also fun and yummy. Don't plant anything you won't eat.

I use old tires for raised beds, they work well.

pilotbraden wrote: I use old tires for raised beds, they work well.

If that's an option, buckets seems to work well.

When I read "Raised garden beds" this is more what I was thinking. Cause bending over to pull weeds sucks.

cedar is totally available. Walk over to the fencing section of your local hardware store and buy cedar fence pickets. That's what I use. Cheap and it never rots or puts nasty stuff in my soil.

I want raised beds because since it got flooded about 5 yrs back, the ground doesn't grow E36 M3 but nasty weeds and is not level. Plus I can fill and plant way faster.

My parents have a cattle farm. I have half a dozen mineral tubs in my back yard. They're filled with "soil" from the steer's pen and grow some awesome veggies.

I built french drains in the bottom of the tubs with some 1/2" PVC, and river rock.

We built a bunch of small ones, and will be adding more this year. They are 2 x 6 feet. This is because you just lop 2 feet off of an 8 foot board and you're all set.

Sides are made from 2xwhatever (some 2x8s, some 2x10s, some 2x12s, whatever was around) with a 2x4 lip on top. They're not super tall, but the lip means you can sit on it while weeding, and the 2 foot width means you can comfortably reach across the entire box, so don't have to switch sides..

Here's one:

if you want ceder, fence pickets are the way to go..

otherwise fir dimensional untreated, will last about 5-10 years depending on the environment.

i made mine 18" tall(3 2x6 plus a 2x4 cap flat around the top) and it is a pretty decent height. need to build some more, but i have a 6x6 and a 6x12 and i get lots of production from them. going to build a 3x6 or so for the asparagus since it's starting to actually grow this year.

I made the ones at the old house 8' by 56" using cedar deck boards. The 56" was because the sides were three 8' boards cut down and stacked so that I ended up with a lower bed 16"x8' @17" off the ground and an upper bed 40"x8' @33" off the ground. The lowers beds hold 3-6 tomato or pepper plants in cages and the upper is for lower height plants.

In my case I planned on four beds surrounding a strawberry pyramid but only finished two and the pyramid before we moved.

At the new house I am going to do the same tiered beds but I'm going to use cinder blocks instead of wood. Even with the mortar and decorator block it's going to be cheaper and match the patio better.

I was into vegetable gardening back in the early eighties. Raised beds were just starting to become trendy, the new way to garden. I did it very inexpensively. I made my beds around three feet wide and ten feet long. Three of them. I double-dug the soil (approximately 20"-24" deep) and worked in compost. The resulting beds were around 6"-8" above grade. I put wood chips on the paths in between the beds. Cheap but a lot of work initially. Never walk on the beds or compact the tilled soil, otherwise you'll have to double dig again next season. I had some pretty good crops for a few years. But like home brewing, vegetable gardening for me was too much effort for what I needed. I realized it was easier to just buy tomatoes, cukes, summer squash and zucchini locally at the farm stand, when I wanted them, and I was no longer concerned about what to do with the excess veggies I produced, which all seemed to come at once. Today I still enjoy getting my hands dirty in the soil, but it's strictly for home landscaping ... flowers, shrubs, hardscaping, etc.

We did nice cedar boxes last year because I couldn't get the crappy clay/dirt crap to get better despite 15 years of veggie waste mulch and mushroom compost and ten other things I added. I was shocked at the yards of garden mix I needed to get to fill the boxes.

Just got my tomatoes and peppers in for the season. Trying to decide what else to add to the empty spaces...

In reply to 84FSP:

Radishes, carrots and beets make good fillers.

We used pea gravel for the walkway, much easier to get rid of the weeds. The whole thing is 64'x8'. The width of the boxes seems about right. As other have said, too wide and you can't reach the back. We also added drip irrigation because a standard sprinkler wouldn't reach both sides. We used pressure treated 2x12s and tied them to the fence posts. I probably should have used cedar, but this way was much cheaper. It's been sturdy, but probably overkill. We needed the fence, and the chicken wire, because of critters. The rabbits and deer out here are hungry.

G8MikeGXP wrote: We used pea gravel for the walkway, much easier to get rid of the weeds. The whole thing is 64'x8'. The width of the boxes seems about right. As other have said, too wide and you can't reach the back. We also added drip irrigation because a standard sprinkler wouldn't reach both sides. We used pressure treated 2x12s and tied them to the fence posts. I probably should have used cedar, but this way was much cheaper. It's been sturdy, but probably overkill. We needed the fence, and the chicken wire, because of critters. The rabbits and deer out here are hungry.

Holy Garden Batman! That thing is epic.

I am doing 5 gallon buckets this year with herbs and cherry tomatoes only. There is no sun except in one of the driveways, tall house, garage and old maple trees suck it all up

84FSP wrote: Just got my tomatoes and peppers in for the season. Trying to decide what else to add to the empty spaces...

Ours are still waiting to go out. Possible frost and maybe even snow tonight...

jere wrote: I am doing 5 gallon buckets this year with herbs and cherry tomatoes only. There is no sun except in one of the driveways, tall house, garage and old maple trees suck it all up

I have the same issue, and a similar solution, except I added an automatic watering system to it. pictures are here https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/off-topic-discussion/i-got-spring-fever-and-the-only-cure-is-gardening/99704/page4/ but there are videos of doing that all over the place.

keethrax wrote:

84FSP wrote: Just got my tomatoes and peppers in for the season. Trying to decide what else to add to the empty spaces...

Ours are still waiting to go out. Possible frost and maybe even snow tonight...

Apparently waiting for tonight was optimistic. It's almost noon and snowing right now.

FYI - pressure treated lumber no longer carries the arsenic that it used to. There are other ways to treat the wood that do not leach into the soil.

http://www.gardeningblog.net/2009/04/12/using-pressure-treated-lumber-in-raised-garden-beds/

http://extension.oregonstate.edu/question-of-the-week/raised-bed-lumber-pressure-treated-safe

Looked into this a couple of years ago. Google takes 20 seconds to find dozen of articles that show it is OK.