How I built my raised beds

My garden is far from fancy, but I do have a goal of keeping it as natural and pretty as possible.  We did not have anything to do with the fence that is behind it and someday if I can completely minimize the visual impact of the fence, I will be happy.  It is going to take a long time with that goal since it runs nearly the entire length of our acre.

The first year I started with three raised beds.  My kind neighbor volunteered to dig the area with his tractor, for which I was very grateful.  It made for a nice double dug raised bed.  Unfortunately, I didn't know about Johnson Grass back then and was not nearly as diligent as I should have been in pulling every bit of the roots and rhizomes that I could.  If you are putting in new beds, do yourself a favor and be sure to get all of the roots!

I choose cedar planks.  It was more expensive, but I knew I wanted nothing to do with any treated wood and cedar would weather better than a non-treated piece of lumber.  My boxes are made up of three 8' boards (2x6's maybe??).  I had Lowe's cut the third board exactly in half so that my bed would be 8'x4' minus an inch or two.  I simply bought some right angle shaped braces and put 2 braces in each corner.  I did all of the building myself and the kids and I transported them from the driveway to the garden.  The hardest part was moving in wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow full of dirt to fill them!

 

When I added the fourth raised bed the following year, I used my handy manure fork (similar to a pitch fork) to break up the heavy clay soil and help in removing the grass/weeds that were left.  The season prior I laid soil bags to help in killing the majority of turf that was in the space where the new bed would be.  The kids and I did all of the digging and then set the wooden frame in the space we had prepared.  You can see my manure fork in the this picture.  I have bent up and broken two of them, but I haven't found anything else that works as well in my clay soil.

Surrounding the raised frames, I laid layers of newspaper the first year to kill weeds and then mulched over the top.  I have found that I much prefer using cardboard under my mulch to keep the weeds away.  Over time it completely breaks down and has been much more effective in ridding weeds than the newspaper layers.  Last spring, I stopped by Ikea and managed to bring home a huge stack of large cardboard pieces for the area that I was adding to my mulched space.  I will likely do the same this year to help kill the last bit of grass/weeds in my space.

I love mulch for minimizing the amount of work I have to do pulling weeds in the heat of summer.  I prefer to use cedar mulch in my beds as that helps in deterring bugs.  A thick layer of mulch on your beds will also cut down on the need for watering as it helps retain the water and keeps the soil cooler when the 100 degree days are upon us.  I lay my drip irrigation around my plants before spreading the new layer of mulch for the season.  I noticed today that the price of bagged cedar mulch is significantly higher this year than last.  It has gone up more than $1  to over $5 for a 3 cubic foot bag.  I'll be checking out new sources or using the cedar sparingly this season!

All of my walkways are mulched with any old hardwood mulch.  If you can find a person with a tree service, you can likely get your mulch for free.  With a layer of cardboard underneath and mulch on top, it will make light work of weeding.

This is my fourth season working my garden and I can't believe how much it has changed from the first two pictures!  Besides adding a hideous, and anything but natural fence, around the perimeter last year, we did quite a bit to help with the prettiness factor.  This year's goal is to kill the grass on the outside of the fence and plant herbs and flowers around the fence.  We had to fence it to keep the dog and the chickens out, each of which is equally destructive.

Pictures of my automated watering system and information on my fabulous, worth every penny tomato cages should be posted later this week.

Comments

[Carolyn]

Steph, thanks for the how to. I'm curious...how many raised beds to you have now? How do you group your veggies? How much space do you leave for "viney" veggies (squashes?).

We have an acre but the issue we have is that we are backed up to woods where there is a plethora of wildlife. And as if to directly contradict that, we also live in a development that does not allow fencing which is tantamount to putting up an "all you can eat for FREE" buffet sign should we put in a garden.

But...we have been given the OK to use some land that a friend owns and are actually going to attempt a small garden and see how it goes.

I did want to caution you on one front. The hardwood mulch, esp if you're getting it from someone clearing trees for free. Mulch like that is known for having LOTS of seeds, whether it be tree or weed or whatever in it. I spent two years after laying that type of mulch in my perennial garden trying to undo the damage all the seeds caused. I had a great tan that year though.

[SaM]

I currently have 4 raised beds in my cedar boxes. My two additions last years were a patch that was not framed for the vining varieties. That area was a valuable lesson in what not to do and why you should not dismiss the spacing guidelines...oh and why you should believe the packet when it tells you that squash will cross pollinate. Let's just say, I will be doing things differently for squash, cantaloupe and watermelon this year. What exactly, I have not figured out yet!

Last year I also added my potting soil row, and though not framed on both sides, it is essentially a raised bed as we used a row of cinder blocks on one side to help level it. I am debating if I need edging this year on the other side now that the bags have been removed.

If I had it to do over again, I would be much better about how I grouped my plants and follow a better rotation plan. I have tried to stick with The Vegetable Gardener's Bible lists of good companion plants but I have not been scientific about anything. I really need to work out a rotation plan going forward. This is where my perfectionism nearly kept me from ever getting the garden started, so I pretty much ignored those details in favor of getting things planted.

[Debbie Hopper]

I started with 2 4x4 untreated wood for my raised beds. One is 6 inches high and the other is 10 inches. I used the directions from Square Foot Gardening to build, and also used pvc to make dome over box. Can cover with plastic in cold weather for protection. I used weed clother underbox, set box and filled with cotton bur compost, garden soil and top soil. I covered 3 ft around box with weed cloth and covered with pine bark mulch. I love it. It beats the tilling and hoeing.