Building a Raised Bed Vegetable Garden
June 22, 2010

Why Raised Beds?

1. Aesthetics—they look nice and tidy.
2. Easier to manage, the soil doesn’t compact since you don’t walk on it and it’s easy to set up hoop houses over them for protection.
3. You can grow more veggies. With loose rich soil you can plant closer together than recommended for traditional row gardening.
4. You can grow more nutritious veggies in a rich loose soil.
5. You can build them to go over just about any surface, driveways, concrete or hard pan soil.
6. They can save your back. Don’t have to dig or bend over as far to work the soil.

Types of Raised Beds

Instead of planting in rows with paths between each row, the rows are wide and tall and the paths are outside the planting area. Beds 3-4 feet wide are ideal but they can be narrower or wider. Your arm reach is the measure. You’ll need to reach comfortably into the middle of the bed. Most plants can be grown in as little as 6 inches—more is better but not too much more. Consider the weight of the wet soil.

• Framed Raised Beds
  Make the frames of any clean recycled material, bricks, broken concrete, bottles or wood. Be creative.

• Unframed Raised Beds
  The soil is mounted on the ground and patted into place.

What About Soil?

The goal is to have loose rich soil. What type of soil do you have? Is it a heavy clay or is it loose and sandy? A good soil test will help you find out if your soil is safe, the type of soil you have and what soil amendments you may need. Raised beds are a good solution to hard pan soils that pool water or sandy soils that drain too quickly.

Should you use your existing soil or buy a soil mix? It depends.

Your existing soil can be easily amended for a good productive soil. Compost helps loosen heavy soils and helps hold water and nutrients in sandy soil. Start by loosening the soil. Fluff it up! Then add at least 2 inches of compost and fluff or till again. Double digging is the best method to till the soil. With double digging you dig out the first foot of soil then loosen the lower foot of soil with a spading fork. Your soil will be fluffed up about 4-6 inches. You can then build the frames or pat the soil into place.

You can purchase good soil mixes, 2 or 3 way soils work well. These are a mix of compost, sand and/or soil. It can get expensive.

Select a Good Location

Your site will need at least 6 hours of sunshine. Pay attention to where shadows fall from surrounding trees in each season. As leaves fill in the spring they may cast shadows on your garden. Gardening in containers adds the advantage of a moveable garden.

Construction of our Raised Bed

Materials

Use the corner brackets and 1.5 inch screws to attach the 4 foot boards to one another, forming a square.  Drill 3 inch screws through the end of a 2 foot board into the cut edge of another 2 foot board, attaching them together at a 90 degree angle.  Do this 3 more times to form a square. You may place the smaller 2 x 2 foot box onto one of the corners of the 4 foot box, lay it on the center once the larger box is full of dirt, or arrange it in any fashion to suit your needs.  This kind of tiered box is not necessary, but it's pretty.