How to Build Raised Garden Beds for Vegetables

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How Do You Build a Simple Raised Garden Bed

Steps For Building A Raised Bed Garden

Choose Your Plants

First, you need to know what kinds of plants you will be growing. This is important because it will dictate where you place the beds and how high from the current soil level you need to build them.

When choosing your plants, consider how much sun they need because this will let you know where to place the beds in your yard. Most vegetables need a lot of suns so you will need a sunny area. Also, you want to be cognizant of the root depth for each plant as this will tell you how tall you need to make the raised bed.

Choose Your Garden Site

Once you know the types of plants you’re going to grow, you need to pick the site where you are putting the raised beds. This can be pretty much anywhere in your yard as long as it gets the required amount of sun for your plants. If you are clever you can make the beds aesthetically pleasing so that they add to your landscape instead of detracting from it.

Choose Your Bed Size

Raised beds can be pretty much any size, the only caveat is that you want to be sure that you can reach the plants from all sides of the bed. Therefore, you don’t want the beds to be much more than 4 feet wide. You also want to make sure that you have about two feet on all four sides of the bed so that you can maneuver around it for easy plant maintenance.

Raised beds don’t have to be rectangular or even square. You can make them any shape you want as long as they are big enough to fit the plants you want to put in them. You will be able to put more plants in a raised bed per square foot than you would in your garden but you don’t want to overcrowd them so be sure to know the specifics of how much space you will need for the number of plants you want to grow.

Build The Raised Garden Beds

Most people use lumber to build their raised beds, but you can use anything you want including old bricks, gardening blocks, and even concrete blocks. If you are using lumber you want to get something that is rot-resistant but you don’t want it to have a lot of chemicals in it especially if you’re growing vegetables as you don’t want those chemicals leaching into your food.

Measure out the size that you have determined the beds need to be in the previous step and build up the sides of the bed according to your size, shape, and placement specifications. Be sure to use a level to make sure that all sides of your bed are level.

Fill and Plant

Once you have your raised bed constructed, you can fill it and start planting! One of the great things about raised beds is that you can fill it with the type of soil that is perfectly formulated for the plants you want to grow. After you’ve done that, you can plant your plants whether they be seeds or starter plants according to the specifications for each plant than simply water them and maintain them as you would any other type of garden.

Create a Raised Bed GardenCreate a Raised Bed Garden

The first step in creating a raised bed garden is to decide how large you’d like it to be.  It should be no wider than 4 feet, so you can reach comfortably to end to plants from both sides, but it can be as long as you’d like.  Most people stick with 4 x 4-foot plots, and you can do many 4 x 4 foot plots or one 4 x 12 or 4 x 20 or whatever you want!

You can build your frame out of standard lumber.  2 x 6 lumber is good enough for a frame that will house shallow-root vegetables such as radishes, lettuce, and spinach.  If you want to grow larger vegetables like corn or tomatoes, you’ll need 2 x 12 boards, so your soil can be at least 10 inches deep.

Opinion varies on whether or not you should use treated lumber. If you use untreated lumber, it will rot within a few years and you’ll have to start your garden all over from scratch. If you use treated wood, it has a small potential to leech toxic chemicals into the soil which might be picked up by your plants and passed to you.

If you want to be on the safe side, you should stick with untreated wood. But treated wood is very convenient, and many scientists claim the chances of anyone being harmed by the small number of chemicals that might leech into the soil would be minuscule. This is a personal choice, so whatever you decide is right for you is just fine.

You should have your lumber cut for you when you buy it.  You need the lumber tends to be perfectly even so the soil won’t leak out once you put your raised bed together.  This is extremely difficult to do yourself unless you have a large saw.  A circular saw or handsaw probably won’t cut it.

You’ll need to use three 4-inch ribbed deck nails at each joint to put your frame together.  Other types of deck nails just won’t hold tightly enough to ensure your bed won’t fall apart until the pressure of all that soil and plant material.

You should assemble the frame on a flat, level surface, not directly in the garden if you can help it.  Your frame will be much sturdier if it’s assembled on your deck or driveway.  Then you might require help moving it to the garden, as it will probably be heavy.

You should leave a minimum of two feet between boxes, preferably three feet.  You need enough room to move around comfortably.  Be sure to choose a good location right from the start, because once they’re filled with soil, it’d be impossible to move without emptying them!

You can dig up or till the soil underneath the frames if you wish, but it’s generally not necessary.  Most plants will grow just fine in the 6 or 12 inches of soil inside the frame, and they should be able to push through the ground if they need to.  As long as you provide very high-quality soil with plenty of organic material, your plants should never need to shoot roots down past those 12 inches.

Your soil should be the highest quality soil you can manage.  You can purchase commercial potting soil, but it generally won’t be high enough quality.  You should add more organic material to this soil.  You can use homemade compost, composted manure, or other rich organic material to make the soil you use the best possible quality.

Factors You May Not Know About Them

Raised garden beds have numerous factors for being built. It is an apparent convenience. Lots of people have trouble bending and this is the major reason why people build them. Every possible design, size, and height imaginable is available.

Designs could be improved with the addition of structure and height when creating a raised garden. Soil erosion is an issue in certain gardens and maybe cured because they build an elevated garden bed. When creating a vegetable bed or perhaps a neatly controlled flower bed inside a garden built on the slope then the raised garden bed is the ideal option to use.

There are lots of points to consider when considering building a Raised Garden :

Location is the Most Essential Thing to Consider in Raised Garden Bed

To get good harvest vegetables to require a minimum of 6 hours of sunshine per day. Avoid building near shrubs as well as over-hanging trees.

Read More: Things To Consider Before Buying Or Building A Raised Bed

The Next Thing You Have to Take into Consideration is the Style

It may be expensive to utilize a professional garden design company even though they will make sure the best materials for your raised garden bed. Garden nurseries are a wonderful spot to find help as is also the usage of pictures and gardening magazines.

Offer Free Garden Design Software

When planning and planting helpful advice may also nowadays be seen on many online gardening websites. To assist design and make bed many websites offer free garden design software.

Choosing the Building Materials

Choosing the building materials is the next phase after you have designed it. From garden rocks and bricks to wooden sleepers can be used a multitude of materials. A simpler way if you discover all of this difficult rather than getting the skills, is to purchase a pre-made raised garden bed kit or perhaps a pre-made garden box and just place it together yourself. When building completely from scratch this could take many of the efforts from it.

Next Comes Preparation From the Area in your Garden or Backyard

Next comes preparation from the area where you would like to place it. You have to enable light so that you should clip back any over-hanging branches to obtain the level needed. 4 feet by 8 feet is a great working size for any raised garden bed The area obtainable in your garden should naturally be adapted to suit your bed. It is suggested to not build these too large because this could very well produce problems whenever you attempt to sow and weed the plants as you might be unable to get to the center. You can steer clear of the problem of weeds within your raised garden bed by laying a weed barrier fabric to reduce them coming through.

Choosing your Materials to Build your Raised Garden Bed

Choosing your materials to build your raised garden bed comes next around the agenda. If you are using a pre-made garden kit you need to ensure it cannot maneuver around as it should be kept level. Accomplish this by leaving stakes about 6 inches over the ground and after that hammer them into each corner from the raised garden bed. The very best side of the raised bed ought to be left level for your stakes in case your bed is low.

Raised Garden Bed with Soil

You need to fill your raised garden bed with soil after you have constructed it. Good moisture retention is not going to only enhance your plants but with the addition of compost, you may also give them the best nutrients too. Online garden nursery in addition to garden supply companies sells both compost and soil. You will notice that the rear-breaking task of having it home yourself could be solved by most garden supply companies who offer home delivery.

Leave the Soil to Settle After Watering it Well

Once it has happened it could well be essential to top in the soil levels. Your raised garden bed is currently ready for planting your seeds or plants. To get this done kind of job you are going to always require the proper tools. The most common tools are a garden rake along with a garden hose. In case your soil is stony then the garden sieve is required.

Garden Design

The equivalent amount of garden design may go into any raised garden bed much like any section of your backyard regardless if you are utilizing your raised garden bed for flowers and plants or vegetables. When you wish to incorporate height for a section of your backyard for planting think vertical gardening. A few of the kinds of vegetables that become adults canes are runner beans and tomatoes. Doing your best with your raised garden bed may include planning garden ornaments and accessories like garden obelisks and windmills for any clematis to ascend.

The rear garden or backyard does not need to become the only spot to put an elevated garden bed. You may also design and make your personal in your front garden along with the garden. The benefit and design regardless of what you wind up utilizing it for will invariably provide you with plenty of enjoyment and add style to your garden.

Greenes Fence Cedar Raised Garden Kit 2 Ft – Create a Garden without Digging, Sweating, or Swearing

raised garden bed
raised garden bed

Starting and maintaining an herb, flower, or vegetable garden the old-fashioned way is time-consuming and backbreaking work. You spend hours, if not days, tilling and amending the soil. This is especially true if you have heavy clay, rocky, or sandy soil.

After the plants go in, you have to keep the weeds out! This requires a lot of bending, and daily maintenance to keep the weeds under control.

Gardening Doesn’t have to Be this Difficult!

Whether you are planting a few flowers, herbs, vegetables, or a whole crop-full, our raised garden beds will help you create a beautiful garden in just minutes.

No Time to Garden?

  • Sets up in just minutes
  • No tools or hardware needed for easy, no sweat assembly
  • Patent-Pending design allows you to add on and double your garden for less

Physical Limitations?

  • Made of lightweight Cypress that is naturally resistant to insects and decay
  • Your choice of height (6” to 24”), width (1’ to 4’), and length (you decide)
  • Raised design allows easier access for planting and harvesting, especially for the elderly or disabled gardeners.

Growing Organic?

  • Our cypress raised garden beds are 100% chemical and preservative-free
  • Soil does not compact resulting in higher yields and healthier plants
  • Raised bed design helps control weeds and warms earlier for spring planting

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