Raised garden beds

[General Lee]

I know most here probably have land that allows large gardens. My land is mostly wooded and my soil is terrible so I am trying a couple of raised beds this year. Has anyone else gone this route for their own veggies? I've been reading a book on "Square Foot Gardening". Seems you can get a lot from little space.

 

[dave1949]

That's a good book. We have two 5x10 raised beds, we don't follow the square foot thing too closely, but the idea is the same. We raise carrots, lettuces, onions, staked tomatoes, red beets, radishes, and a few annual flowers in ours. Sweet corn, beans cukes and other stuff that takes room goes in the regular garden.

The beds are very productive with less labor involved. Easy to water also. Since the soil bed is small, you can afford to fill them with really great top soils and compost. Our beds are three 2x8's tall but the soil is not to the top, usually somewhere just above the second 2x8.

 

[Looking4new]

That is all we do here is raised beds. we make ours 4' square and place them 3' apart. They are about 12" deep. We make up our own triple mix to fill them.

 

[robstaples]

We highly recommend using the square foot method that we have been using for years and hás been successful . We use electric fence to keep the deer out as well. Attractive, productive, and easy to maintain. Some years it's not necessary to rototil because the soil doesn't get compacted. We have a tall pole fense on the back side (north) to grown pole beans and cukes.
Started with wood raised sides and walk ways. Now have steel... Salvaged guard rail sides and c channel for walkways

 

[General Lee]

I am planning on 2 beds......4x10 each to start. I'd like to have tomatoes, squash, cukes, cantaloupe. Problem is the 3 of those are crawling plants and I'd need to have a trellis of some sort.

Did you guys use treated wood for the boxes? I don't have access to cedar boards.

 

[dave1949]

I am planning on 2 beds......4x10 each to start. I'd like to have tomatoes, squash, cukes, cantaloupe. Problem is the 3 of those are crawling plants and I'd need to have a trellis of some sort.

Did you guys use treated wood for the boxes? I don't have access to cedar boards.

I have PT 4x4 outside corner posts but the rest is regular kiln dried spruce (I think) lumber. I wouldn't want the leaching from PT in the veggie soil. Plus, you can replace the kiln dried at least twice for the cost difference between PT or cedar.

 

[mjcountrybumpkin]

I built these 42" high boxes for a gentlemen who loved to garden but had severe back problems and could no longer bend over at all. Built out of pt then lined with heavy plastic to keep from contaminating the soil. Very unconventional but what he required. Luckily he had a free supply of quality soil in the tune of 15 tons to fill them with.

 

[mjcountrybumpkin]

I built these 42" high boxes for a gentlemen who loved to garden but had severe back problems and could no longer bend over at all. Built out of pt then lined with heavy plastic to keep from contaminating the soil. Very unconventional but what he required. Luckily he had a free supply of quality soil in the tune of 15 tons to fill them with.

The boxes measure 6'w-10'l-3.5'h

 

[mark02tj]

I am planning on 2 beds......4x10 each to start. I'd like to have tomatoes, squash, cukes, cantaloupe. Problem is the 3 of those are crawling plants and I'd need to have a trellis of some sort.

Did you guys use treated wood for the boxes? I don't have access to cedar boards.

Like the OP, my land is mostly wooded too so I'm limited to where I can put in a garden. I wanted to plow up the sunny front yard for a garden, but my better half kind of frowned on that idea. So, I went with raised beds in the side yard instead.

I used cedar/fir 4x4s for the corner posts on all of the beds that I built. On my first 3 beds I used untreated pine for the sides and coated it with linseed oil. That was strictly a budgetary decision at the time - I was broke that year! Those beds were 4x8 and 12" tall. I spaced them 4' apart so I could get the mower that I was using at the time between them. Plus the 4' allows a lot of "working space" between the beds. Last year I put in another 4x8 and two 4x12s. I placed the 4x8 in line with the first three that I built and the two 4x12s perpendicular to them keeping the 4' spacing. Last years beds were all cedar.

With regards to using pressure treated - I've read conflicting things on that. Some people say absolutely not and others say that the chances of any harmful chemicals leaching into the beds was pretty slim. I opted to stay away from the pressure treated as I'm trying to be as organic as possible. I was able to find the fir corner posts at Home Depot. I was able to find cedar lumber at a local lumber yard but last year a new Menards opened up by us and they carry a good selection of cedar lumber. It was about 40% less than the local yard so I bought it there. If all you have is Lowes or Home Depot in your area you might have trouble finding cedar there.

I brought in dirt from a local place that does topsoil and mulch. I bought their "Gardener's Special" soil that was a mix of topsoil and mulch. I haven't been able to get much of anything to grow in it! One of my plans this week is to send out some soil samples for testing so I know what I have.

You mentioned the vining plants you're planning on planting. I used tomato cages last year for cucumbers and zucchini. That worked pretty well. Use Youtube and you'll find lots of examples of people doing this.

On last suggestion - I wanted to put in "a real garden", but as mentioned, I didn't have the space for it. I put an ad on Craigslist looking for garden space and got a reply from a guy that's about 1.5 miles from me. We're still waiting for the weather to break in order to get together, but I'm hopeful we can work something out. His 13 acre property is more farmland than mine is and he already has a 40'x160' garden plowed there. He's going to give me part of that space and we might also share some of the space to put in stuff like pumpkins, watermelons, etc. You might also want to check with any of the local municipalities around you to see if any of them have "community gardens." The suburb I used to live in have plots for rent (about $30 for the season).

Happy gardening!!

 

[8N Ren]

The Miss' s and I did raised beds, this summer will be the 3rd year in use. She likes it so that works for me. We have 6 beds 4 ft W by 8 ft L and 11 inches high made from 2x6 with a fence around the entire area. I can't find a pic at the moment and the garden is under 4ft of snow.

 

[mark02tj]

One other thing to consider while you're doing your beds.... Some people recommend putting some sort of barrier at the bottom of your bed. I think that most people call it "hardware cloth" (sorry - not enough coffee this morning!!) - it's like a metal screen with 1/4" square holes in it. The purpose is to keep moles, gophers, etc. from burrowing up into your beds. I didn't do this but other people do.

 

[DFB]

My Nurse friend wants me to build her some raised beds boxes and with her organic convictions it definitely wont be any PT wood I'll be using. I hate building anything that doesn't last. I remember building flower boxes out of pine boards for my grandmother when I was kid. Even with drainage holes and painted they just always rotted away in no time.


I figured that I was just going to use dimensional framing grade lumber maybe even sawmill run and thought about lining the inside of the box with something like the new polypropylene roofing underlayments. Any opinions on that?

I did a roof at work at work using some of that. Amazing stuff I thought. For roof job staples are not recommend just the plastic washers because water wicks thru the staple hole it's said but I figure a dab of caulk over a staple should work fine on a little job like this.

 

[grnspot110]

I use "lazy man's" raised beds in one garden, no forms, just keep the walkways the same all the time:





Planting beds are around 30" wide, so I can reach from either side. I mulch everything with aged sawdust, preferring Cottonwood.

In my other garden, I work the whole garden, but still plant in wide rows & mulch everything:





Lowell

 

[dave1949]

It's a good idea to locate and orient the raised beds such that you can dump into them with the tractor FEL. That makes it easy to transfer your finished compost to the beds, same with soil if you have some delivered.

 

[dragoneggs]

I built 4qty 4ft by 8ft by 12in high beds and spaced them a push mower apart. I choose 4 by 8 not to waste lumber. Sides are 2x6 cedar stacked two high and used 2x2 stanchions on the outside to help tie them together. On top I used 5/4 by 4in frame as sort of a sitting rail. I have built boxes with 2x12 before but they warp and check due to the dry outside and wet inside. I lined the bottoms with landscape fabric in hopes of discouraging the critters. I would probably use metal fencing with small holes next time although the moles have not gotten into the gardens. Not the greatest picture and you might be distracted by the background. :laughing:

 

[General Lee]

Great pics everyone. What kinds of plants/veggies do you guys plant and what have you found that works well?

I didn't want to use PT wood as well due to the chemicals, just wondering how long non PT wood is gonna last me.

 

[dragoneggs]

Here in the PNW, my wifey has had best success with Carrots, Beets, Leaf lettuce, Kale, Cucumbers, Beans, Peas, Chives, Tomatoes. Building her a HF 10 by 12 greenhouse shortly. Kit sitting waiting for me to find time and some decent weather to start. That should open up a lot more possibilities. Want to grow peppers, better tomatoes, not to mention some small trees like lemon and limes!

 

[charlz]

Since you say it is wooded try to site your raised beds where they get maximum sunlight. For cukes I have used 'cattle panels' with good success. These are the ones made with 1/4" wire. I pound in T-posts and wire the panel to it and plant cukes on either side. Once the plants start to get 'leaders' I train them up the panels by weaving. Works really well and the cukes come out nice and uniform.

If you can use some good topsoil that is relatively weed-free that will help a lot with how much work it takes.

 

[dragoneggs]

You can also use some plastic to get an early start but be careful of burning the starts. We start our seeds indoors and transplant. Not sure of your spring conditions. It is the cold nights that make some plants like tomatoes hard to get going.