How to Build a Raised-Bed Garden

Email Page

Print Page

Rich Binsacca

Extras

Add Photo to Journal

Raised beds combine the best of both open and contained gardens: Plants have more room to develop their root systems, but you still keep control over soil content, water and nutrients.

There are all kinds of reasons for planting your garden in raised beds. Maybe your soil just isn’t good enough or it’s easier on your body to plant in something just a bit higher off the ground. Whatever the reason, raised beds give you the best of both gardening worlds: container gardens and inground beds.

Like containers, these beds themselves can be a showcase and focal point of a garden. Raised beds allow you to mix your own soil or use a premixed potting formula, making them especially appropriate for areas with difficult native soil conditions such as heavy sand or clay content or areas with lots of rocks. The ability to manipulate the soil means you can easily play with non-native plants and those that require special soil conditions (like acid-loving rhododendrons). You can also experiment with dense plantings that would be difficult to achieve in an open bed, featuring wonderful combinations of color and texture.

You can build raised beds on flat plots or as terraces on slopes in whatever size and dimension your site allows. They’re often built for community gardens and retirement villages to accommodate gardeners of varying ages and abilities. Children, the elderly and folks with limited mobility, for instance, benefit from the easier access to plants, flowers and vegetables in raised beds.

This type of garden has become a fixture of many home landscapes. Part of the reason is probably because raised beds are fairly simple to build and require just basic carpentry skills and common materials and tools. The key to a successful garden is just a stable box that will hold soil and retain moisture while providing drainage. For those reasons, wood is the most popular raised-bed material, though rigid plastic components or masonry also can do the job.

Simple in concept and installation, these open-bottom frames hold rich, fertile soil above the surrounding grade. Although you can use pressure-treated lumber for durable flower beds, never use this type of wood to hold any fruit, herb or vegetable garden or for any edible species that may be consumed. To avoid potential hazard from the toxic preservative injected into the treated lumber, choose non-treated redwood, cedar or dense tropical woods that resist decay instead.

Installing a raised-bed planter is about a 6- to 8-hour project, and it can easily be done on a weekend. Follow the steps shown in the pictures and described in their captions for a great-looking raised-bed container – or two!

Required Materials:

4 2x12-in. (38x286-mm) Side boards (Dimension as required for site and project)
12 ⅜x3½-in. (10x90-mm) Deck screws
12 1-in. (25-mm) Flat washers

Add Photo to Journal

Step 1: Mark the outline of the bed, then level and excavate the area within the markings to a depth of 6-8 inches.

Warnings

If you want to build raised beds for food-producing plants, never use pressure-treated wood! Pressure-treated lumber can leach chemicals – including arsenic – into your garden soil. Visit the US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Website for more information on the EPA’s official take on this issue.

Facts

The practice of gardening in raised beds was a European tradition formally introduced to the US in the mid-1960s. It has since grown in popularity and creativity to produce small-scale, highly productive vegetable gardens, easy-to-manage perennial plots and almost any kind of planting you can imagine!
Read More...
While raised-bed planters can retain more water than a typical container, they still dry out more quickly than inground plantings. If watering becomes an issue, consider installing an irrigation system to make watering less of a chore.
Read More...

Tips

When choosing plants or trees for an existing landscape planter or for one you plan to construct, determine their size at maturity to achieve a harmonious balance between the planter and the planted. Not sure how large your plant of choice might get? Check the plant tag or visit the Learn2Grow Plant Database.
If you’ve got a sloping area in your yard, consider terracing it with raised-bed “step” retaining walls. It’s a good opportunity for planting and helps with erosion on the hillside.
Read More...

Come to The Garden Party and share your raised garden with the rest of our Learn2Grow community! Post some pictures of your planting beds, create a blog, or ask our Learn2Grow gardening experts and other home gardeners for more ideas, tips or help.

Page 1 of 2

Next Steps

Courses | View All

Creative Containers
Containers can go anywhere, add value and provide luxury to a gardener regardless of experience. Take the Creative Containers course to learn great ways to get started in gardening.

Articles

Raised Bed Basics
Creating a raised bed for your vegetable garden provides your veggies with a wonderful growing environment. Learn the basics of this great growing system.
The Great Garden Frame-Up
Raised vegetable beds provide a neat and orderly appearance to the garden, as well as bring productive results. Here are the quick step-by-step instructions to building an easy raised vegetable bed in one afternoon.
It’s Hip to be Square Foot Gardening
Who says that vegetable gardening has to be backbreaking work over long rows? With Square Foot Gardening, you can grow small, efficiently planned gardens and produce lots of vegetables (and flowers) in just a small bit of space.

RATE THIS PAGE

Click a star to rate