A raised garden bed is the perfect way to grow your own fruit and vegetables. Not only do they look great, but they’re also easy to construct and maintain. I’ll show you how to build a simple raised garden bed that you can use in your own garden.

Your garden may well have challenging soil. Whether it’s sandy, rocky, hard clay or a mixture, the best solution here is a raised bed, or the no dig method. Much of plant development occurs in the shallower areas of the soil. The activity of microbes and worms helps the plant consume the nutrients it requires to grow. Most vegetables have anchor roots that will penetrate a wide variety of soils, as long as the upper structure is well supplied.

Raised beds need not be complicated. A raised vegetable bed kit may not even be necessary, in a simple mound of good soil and compost, and daily watering, large growing plants such as zucchini, squash, and pumpkins will do really well. You don’t need to invest in making raised beds if you’re just interested in growing these plants. However, if the rest of your vegetable garden needs much more structure to withstand the elements and any enthusiastic pets and kids that share your house then please read on!

DIY Raised Garden Beds

One of the best things about gardening is that you can start with just about nothing and end up with something beautiful, fulfilling or successful or if you’re blessed with a green thumb all three. The subject of garden beds can generate healthy heated discussion between allotment gardeners. To dig or not to dig, that is the question. Plants, luckily, are more forgiving and they can survive as long as they have sun, water, food and somewhere half decent to place their roots. But the basics need to be laid down to give your plants the best start possible in life.

Raised Garden Bed Materials

For most raised beds the most popular edging has to be old wooden railway sleepers. Railway sleepers are fairly easy to source, robust and for the construction of beds usually, they’re at ideal lengths. But you can use whatever comes to hand that can retain a depth of soil of at least one hand and a half. We have successfully used rocks, old scaffold planking and offcuts of wood. We’ve also used decking which has a nice look and ages well. A lot of lengths of wood can be recycled to make great edging and corrugated iron is also very popular. The possibilities are only as limited as your imagination. Just be sure to know how the wood has been treated. Due to the presence of wood preservatives such as coal tar, creosote or salts of heavy metals, using railroad sleepers requires a lot of buying diligence. This is because most older railway sleepers are treated with creosote which is a preserving chemical that is unsuitable for skin or food contact. Avoid chemical wood treatments for use in vegetable gardening – a good supplier will be able to tell you how their wood has been treated. Creosote free railway sleepers are available but they tend to be more expensive.

Tools and materials

Before you start, you’ll need the following tools and materials:

• shovel
• tape measure
• level
• saw (hand or power)
• drill
• screw Gun
• deck screws or sleeper bolts
• lumber (pressure treated)
• hardware cloth
• landscape fabric
• mulch

It’s important to use pressure – treated lumber for this project because it will resist rot and insect damage.

Don’t forget to predrill holes for your deck screws! It will make assembly much easier.

Be sure to get all of your supplies before you start construction so that you don’t have to stop in the middle.

Size counts: Raised Beds Planning

Having decided on your construction material, you’ll now need to plan where you’ll site your bed, most importantly arrange the beds so that you need not walk on them and in a design that looks good in your garden. your next big decision is how large to make the beds. Don’t make them bigger than double your own arm’s length. Essentially, that means that you can maintain them and reach the middle of the beds without walking on the soil and causing compaction. When it comes to shape, triangles of wood are good, because they fit together with paths in between that looks nice and as a bonus are easy to maintain. Crops like sweet corn do well in triangles because pollination is improved. Traditional squares and rectangles have their place too, to fit into existing garden situations with little replanning. One of the most inefficient shapes in a small plot are large circles, however these can look good on a smaller scale are ideal as a feature especially for rampant herbs like mint and chives.

Raised Garden Bed Corners

Once you have decided how your beds should be shaped and positioned, simply place the edging material. Due to the soil adding pressure to the edging material you will need to secure the wood ends. Nails or gang nails, are generally used for keeping timber roof framing together, are cheap and strong. Secured at the corners strong roofing nails will stop soil spilling at the weak points of your bed. Hinges, recycled from other projects, will be handy to securely join wooden ends as hinges adapt to a wide range of angles of wood. Pre-drilling of harder woods, such as that in railway sleepers, may be necessary for the screw bolts. This is also true for metal braces or wooden supports that cross the angle from the top of the planks, for stability. You’ll need to purchase special bolts to secure railway sleepers together and you’re also likely to wear out quite a few drill bits while making the holes. Heavy sleepers will sit in place without the need for additional anchoring if you’re just using one layer, and soil and straw can be built up without movement of the edges – always remembering to take care with your back even the smallest railway sleeper needs two people to shift them.

Construction tips

Start by measuring out the area where you want to build your raised garden bed. Use a tape measure to get the dimensions of the area, then mark out the area with stakes and string. This will be your construction site.

To make things easier, build your raised garden bed on level ground if possible. If not, be sure to level out the area before you start digging.

Next, use your shovel to dig out the area within the stakes and string. Be sure to dig down at least 6 inches so that the soil is loose and easy to work with.

Once you’ve dug out the area, it’s time to build the frame for your raised garden bed. Cut lumber to length. Assemble the frame using deck screws, making sure to predrill holes for the screws first.

To keep animals from digging into your raised garden bed, line the inside of the frame with hardware metal cloth or chicken wire. Secure to the frame with 1/2″ staples.

To help prevent weeds from growing in your raised garden bed, line the bottom of the frame with landscape fabric. Secure the landscape fabric to the frame with 1/2″ staples.

Now it’s time to fill your raised garden bed with soil.

Building up the beds: Raised Garden bed Soil

You can use store-bought potting soil or make your own by mixing equal parts sand, compost, and peat moss. Fill the bed up to about 2″ below the top of the frame, then water it well so that the soil is evenly moistened throughout. There are quite a few options for filling in your newly constructed raised bed. Line your new beds with old newspaper or thick (packing tape free) cardboard and make alternate layers of good organic material (compost, soil mix etc) and layers of straw. You can also fill them completely with rotted farmyard manure (cow manure is ideal for this!) and finish the beds with a thin layer of topsoil. Don’t use meadow hay unless you really like weeding: every seed will germinate! A bit of blood and bone and manure and you have paradise for your plants. Regularly top up with more organic material each season, you will have a self-perpetuating system for your vegetables that will be an easy to care for. Whatever you decide don’t fill you raised bed with just top soil, this will eventually compact under its own weight and you’ll have missed the opportunity to add deep layers of humus which makes no dig systems so successful and easy to grow plants.

Once your raised garden bed is filled with soil, it’s time to plant! Choose plants that are well suited for growing in raised beds, such as tomatoes, peppers, beans, or squash. Be sure to leave enough space between plants for them to grow.

By rotating your vegetable crops, and companion planting, your raised bed soil mix will encourage healthy earthworm activity and the previously undesirable soil below your construction will become improved without any more effort on your part.

Once your plants are in place, water them well and add a layer of mulch around each plant. This will help retain moisture in the soil and keep weeds at bay.

That’s it! With just a little bit of work, you can have a beautiful and bountiful raised garden bed in no time.

Raised Bed Gardens: Worth the Effort?

The ‘no dig’ method works best for smaller gardens with poor soils, for large plots it would require a lot more effort, but they do maximize the productivity for most small to medium spaces. Raised beds are also a good choice for wheelchair users and those with bad backs. If you like the layout of your beds, you can next complete your garden with permanent weed-free paths which can be laid between the beds, giving year round access to your easy-care garden. Make sure paths are wide enough for wheelbarrow access. From experience the 60 cm concrete pavers are the minimum size to use. I used 45 cm pavers once between beds and found access really hard once the plants were in full swing and overhanging the narrow paths making access for watering and harvesting really hard not to mention they shaded the plants in the bed next door! I’ve seen some very nice paths laid with sieved flint and gravel, ensure you put a thick layer of weed matting between the soil and the gravel path.

With just a little bit of work, you can have a beautiful and bountiful raised garden bed in no time. So what are you waiting for? Get started today!