Posted: 3/12/2009 1:36:38 PM EDT
| I am wanting to build some raised beds for gardening in the back yard and I'm looking for some plans/pictures of some of yours. Thanks in advance. |
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I use decking matierial, 2" screws and a power drill.
Pics in this thread: My raised bed garden |
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I use decking matierial, 2" screws and a power drill. Pics in this thread: My raised bed garden How did you prep the ground underneath and do you secure the frame to the ground or just lay the frame on the ground? |
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Out of curiosity and for the want to build one myself, what is the benefit to a raised garden verses in ground? You fill it with more fertile soil/ sand mix. You want very lofty dirt, I think they say it should be like 30% sand. You beat me to it. I was just thinking the same thing as to what to fill it with. |
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It is a pressure treated knee wall (short stud wall) made to the height of used galvanized roofing I ripped with a circular saw. Then I lined it with 1/2" foam to keep the dirt off of the metal (thinking the metal would last longer). I got the idea from a website for some sort of college or foundation, I think it was NOBLE.
ETA link..http://www.noble.org/Ag/Index.htm |
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I have had pretty decent success with 4 to 6 inch high raised beds. I was thinking maybe this year I will restart my gardening efforts but try some taller beds, just to reduce the amount of bending.
Some people have told me that taller beds require a lot of watering. has that been your experience? I rarely had to water any of my 4 or 6 inch high beds. Might be because I kept a mulch on top of the soil between plants as much as I could. |
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I have had pretty decent success with 4 to 6 inch high raised beds. I was thinking maybe this year I will restart my gardening efforts but try some taller beds, just to reduce the amount of bending. Some people have told me that taller beds require a lot of watering. has that been your experience? I rarely had to water any of my 4 or 6 inch high beds. Might be because I kept a mulch on top of the soil between plants as much as I could. Best I can determine is that with the beds as tall as they were when we got a 3" rain I could go ou the next day and work in them due to the high compost amount. They never got waterlogged. But during the dry spell last summer they did fine with minimal watering due to about 8" of grass clippings. |
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Out of curiosity and for the want to build one myself, what is the benefit to a raised garden verses in ground? You fill it with more fertile soil/ sand mix. You want very lofty dirt, I think they say it should be like 30% sand. Or, as in my case, my land is mostly rocks and caliche, so raised beds are easier than digging. 
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I used 8"x8"x16" concrete blocks instead of wood because I didn't want pressure treated next to my soil and natural, non-rotting woods were too expensive. I stacked my blocks two high which gives me a nice 16" off the ground. I didn't pull up my grass, I covered it with the best weed blocker cloth I could buy and covered that with 8" cheap top soil and then a mix of top soil, compost, cow manure and peat moss for the next 8". I haven't had a problem with grass coming up. I'm on my second season, I built it in the summer of 08 and planted in fall 08 and now I'm on my spring garden (South Florida seasons). Just make sure you REALLY want a garden before you get everything delivered. Mine was 1.75 pallets of block, 1.5 pallets of top soil, 2 mixed pallets of everything else. This built a 5'x12' and a 5' x 17' (16" high), lots of work but worth it for me.
This summer I'm thinking of reducing the height by half but doubling the size. It should cost me very litte because I have the block and most of the soil. I'll just need to amend the soil on both of them after I'm done transferring half of the existing soil from the old to the new. I also installed drip irrigation over the winter which I'm very happy with so far. It's much quicker to water everything by turning a couple of valves and I only water the vegetables and not the weeds. |
Here are some in my backyard in the middle of the suburbs made from left-over deck materials. The only money I spent on making them was on the decking screws.
The dark green plants are walking onions. The light green plants are garlic. The 3rd bed has just been planted with radishes and chard. The fourth bed is still being filled with compost, rabbit poop, peat moss and sand. I have walking onions spring up everywhere, and just usually let them grow until I decide to harvest it. |
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Start by determining your bed size, and then "double-digging" your soil. It's more work up front, but IMO if you're going to be using that same space for more than one season then the extra effort is worth it ... in the long run. Then just use regular 'ole 2X8 material (not treated) to build your box / rectangle. Set it in place over your dug soil and fill it with whatever you've got / what you want. The "soil recipe" in the SFG book seems like a good idea, but also seems like it could get a bit expensive. While there are some really good ideas presented in that SFG book, I don't follow all of them to a "T". For instance, rather than using 12"x12" squares I prefer to use 16"x16" squares, which I also think would work really well in a rectangular bed about 3' X 12' in size. I also disagree with that author's *minimalist* theory on "adequate" depth necessary for good (read: the best) root development - hence the suggestion for double-digging up front. But do use that book as it does have some good info, and combine it with some of the ideas presented in The Vegetable Gardener's Bible: High Yield W-O-R-D System ... and you'll be off to a great start. Plenty of good stuff in both those books to keep you busy for a while. HTH. 
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I want to redo mine this year. I only have a couple left and have not been using them for the last 5 or ten years.
Anyone got any ideas for making them out of something cheap and durable/ I'd like them a bit taller to reduce how much bending I have to do. i don't care so much, but my wife does not want them to be treated wood. |
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Here are a few pics of a couple of mine.
I build them out of recycled/used railroad cross ties. While they are treated, it is with creosote (I believe) and I think that anything that is going to leach out of them has probably already done so. You don't have to do any (screwing together) with these. Maybe a couple of stakes/rebar on either side to keep them from shifting. But you had better be strong or have a helper to get them moved into place. They weigh between 75 and 100 pounds apiece. I get them from a local lumber/building supply store in bundles of 18, delivered to my place, but you can get fewer if you want to haul them yourself. This first one is about 9 X 18. Three ties high on the lower end and two high the rest of the way around. It is not full to the top with soil yet. Thats a lot of cubic footage. Tlhis one has cabbage, broccoli, onions and some radishes and english peas. It is about 4 years old. 
This one I just built a couple of weeks ago, and has my wifes Turnip Greens  in it. The window is an old "picture window" from my living room that I kept after replacing it with 3 new vinyl double pane jobs.
That allows me to use it as a cold frome for some other warmer season crops that may not be ready to go in the ground yet. 
MIKE |
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Very nice - well done ... You may also want to consider installing either some sort of a "center tie" on the inside, or staking the sides on the outside so that the long sides don't bow/bulge out when it's filled. Looks great. |
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What is Mel's new soil mix from the all new SQFG book? I have mulitple copies of the old book. "Mel's mix": 1/3 Blended compost 1/3 Peat moss 1/3 Coarse vermiculite Mix equal parts of each, blended by volume, not by weight. He goes into a bit of detail in the book on each of the different components, but I've not yet used this soil mix and I'm not sure how it differs from his previous recipe. |
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Quoted: Very nice - well done ... You may also want to consider installing either some sort of a "center tie" on the inside, or staking the sides on the outside so that the long sides don't bow/bulge out when it's filled. Looks great. Thanks for the suggestion, I'll get some stakes and anchor the sides down. |
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What is Mel's new soil mix from the all new SQFG book? I have mulitple copies of the old book. "Mel's mix": 1/3 Blended compost 1/3 Peat moss 1/3 Coarse vermiculite Mix equal parts of each, blended by volume, not by weight. He goes into a bit of detail in the book on each of the different components, but I've not yet used this soil mix and I'm not sure how it differs from his previous recipe. I used to use about 1/3 dirt, 1/3 peat moss, and 1/3 vermiculite. I put grass clippings on top of and mixed into the mixture. I know the composting purists don't like that but it seemed to work. I read not too long ago about a method where you put straw on the ground and just a few inches of dirt on top of it. Anyone tried that? Seems to me I remember someone doing something similar a long time back, but can't recall if it was me or someone else. |
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I used to use about 1/3 dirt, 1/3 peat moss, and 1/3 vermiculite. I put grass clippings on top of and mixed into the mixture. I know the composting purists don't like that but it seemed to work. I read not too long ago about a method where you put straw on the ground and just a few inches of dirt on top of it. Anyone tried that? Seems to me I remember someone doing something similar a long time back, but can't recall if it was me or someone else. Good thought. While 1/3 compost may be "the ideal", I can't imagine how just using regular soil instead wouldn't work ... Maybe not *quite* as well - but still probably better than the "straight" soil found in a lot of places. Mine has a ton of clay in it, and while I initially added a fair amount of peat moss to help balance some things, adding a bit of vermiculite too probably would have been even better. |