Raise That Garden Bed!

Raised bed garden benefits are many. From vegetable gardening to flower gardens, perennial plants to a community gardens and botanical gardens, the raised bed form of gardening has many advantages.

As with most things, there are pros and cons, so we’ll cover disadvantages as well.

Raised bed gardening isn’t just easier on your back and knees… it may also be better for your garden plants! Raised beds make it is easier to protect plants from burrowing rodents like moles and voles.

There are numerous advantages to raised garden beds and they can be made out of a number of different materials. What you use and the style you choose just depends on your taste, budget and time available.

RAISED BED GARDEN BENEFITS

Why raised bed gardening?

Isn’t it easier to just plant in the ground? Well, maybe, but there are a number of advantages and benefits to raised bed gardening.

If you have lots of space to garden, in good soil and relative open and level ground, then garden rows are likely the easiest. If you like the hands off approach of no till and less work, you can try the Ruth Stout approach of deep mulch gardening.

But, if you’re considering whether to go for raised beds, here are some pros and cons.

Outline of Raised Bed Garden Benefits We’ll Cover

• EASIER – Makes gardening easier for:
  • planting
  • tending and maintaining
  • harvesting
• HEALTHIER – Raised beds are easier on the body and especially helps save wear and tear on your:
  • back
  • knees
• PESTS: Elevates the bed – higher beds make it:
  • harder for rabbits to access
  • easier to line with hardware fabric, cardboard and other pest-resistant layers for burrowing creatures like voles.
• SOIL ISSUES – Raised bed garden benefits include a work-around poor soil issues, allowing you to:
  • avoid planting in poor soil
  • build up the soil in your yard and land over time
• SPACE ISSUES – Raised beds can:
  • provide more grow space through elevated vertical beds
  • can be built in all shapes and sizes to fit in wherever you have space
  • raised planters can be placed on patios, decks and balconies

Let’s elaborate.

BETTER BACKS – Raised Bed Garden Benefits

For many people the biggest advantage is that raised bed gardening is easier on the back and body in general. The height of raised beds makes it easier and less tiring to tend the garden. Seniors and those with disabilities do well with taller raised beds that eliminate the need for squatting and bending.

POOR SOIL? Try Raised Beds!

The other big advantage to raised beds is that you can easily create a garden no matter what type of soil you have. Raised garden bed benefits include letting you grow healthy plants no matter what soil type is underfoot.

We’ll get more into raised garden beds benefits a little further below. First, let’s consider some of the various types of raised beds.

LIMITED SPACE – Raised Beds Help Conserve Space

If you have limited growing space you want to make sure you’re getting maximum production from that area. You’d be amazed what you can grow in a small space when you work with all the elements to conserve, rotate and reuse while boosting production.

Our favorite tool for planning your garden is the garden planner app which we use all the time and have also written about it.

SAVES SPACE – Raised Beds Can Be Sized to Squeeze Into Most Any Space

Some folks just use the strip of grass beside their driveway and property line or privacy fence. Others use a southern exposure wall for vertical gardening, and still others without any yard plots garden in pots and planters, on balconies and patios.

Whatever your situation, chances are there are ways to maximize your yield. A good book on that topic you may enjoy is Food Grown Right in Your Backyard, by Colin McCrate and Brad Halm.

GARDEN PESTS – Raised Beds Can Help With Furry Garden Pests

Raised bed gardens helps protect your crops from critters. With raised garden beds it’s easier to fend off furry offenders.

Types of Raised Bed Gardens

There are many sizes, shapes, styles and types of materials for raised garden beds. Some examples include natural stone walled beds, lumber, concrete blocks as well as mortarless interlocking blocks that require no cutting of lumber or nails and screws.

What follows are some of the many options available for creating your own raised garden beds. These are listed in alphabetical order. If you don’t see your favorite kind of raised beds here, please let us know. We’d love to learn from your experience and add that here.

Barrels for Raised Bed Gardening

Some people love the barrel method, especially if they already have ready access to 55 gallon drum barrels for free or for cheap.

Others, hate the idea of plastic.

Advantages of 55 Gallon Barrel Gardens

• Less time to set up, so your garden is ready in less time.
• Easy to customize the height to be a perfect fit for you.
• Can reuse year after year.
• Easy placement – can fit into available spots, singularly or in clusters

If you like the idea, but don’t have the barrels, one way to find some is to search Craigslist and Google. Try googling “55 gallon drums”, [your city], [your state] or “near me””, and you should come up with some sources for these.

55 gallon drums are a popularly searched item because they do have many beneficial uses. One of the favorites is for raised bed gardening. Place these on stands for your perfect height, add soil and plants and you’ve got a garden!

Uses for 55 Gallon Drums

• Raised garden beds out of 55 gallon drums –
• Earthboxes – self contained garden systems
• Aquaponic systems

Hugelkultur Beds

Hugelkultur raised beds are especially good if you’re in or near the woods with lots of felled tree limbs and woodsy debris. They may look a bit unkempt, but it’s the most rich and natural growing environment that builds up nutrients and resources over time.

You can read more on huglekultur here.

Interlocking Concrete Blocks for Raised Beds

Any kind of interlocking concrete blocks are great for sturdy raised bed gardens. These are especially good for a strong DIY landscape gardener with a good back, because the blocks are heavy. However, these fit together well… kind of like adult gardener Lincoln Logs, and make for a substantial garden bed that can last for years to come.

We installed ours in our home landscape around 30 years ago and we’ve never had to do anything to the walls.

Benefits of Interlocking Concrete Raised Beds

• Sturdy and long lasting for years to come
• Good for extending and rounding out a slope or hillside growing area
• Requires no sawing, drilling, hammers, nails or screw.
• Fewer Materials: blocks and metal pins and possibly soil retention fabric

Lasagna Gardening Method

The lasagna garden method is not that tall but can definitely have a mounded raised garden feel.

Find more on layers of raised garden beds, lasagna gardening and layered garden beds methods

Stone Wall – Landscape Garden Raised Beds

Stone walls are beautiful additions to yard and garden landscapes. They showcase herb and flower gardens beautifully as well as specimen plants like Japanese red maple trees.

Square Foot Garden

A popular raised gardening approach is the square foot garden. Typically 8-10″ tall, square foot gardening is especially helpful for smaller gardens with limited space. This method  of square foot gardening was proven by its creator to yield more pounds of food per square inch of space.

Straw Bale Gardening

We’ve done extensive straw bale gardening, and it has its pros and cons, but is overall, one of the quickest and easiest ways to create a raised bed garden.

There are definitely benefits of straw bale gardening, some of which you can read about in our article on straw bales. You can see where we tested our straw bale raised bed temperature. So there are benefits of straw bale gardening approach to raised beds too.

The main drawback is that they aren’t as attractive, especially as they start to decompose throughout the season.

Wood Raised Garden Beds – 2 Foot High, Stained

Now this is eye candy for gardeners! These beautifully constructed and stained wooden raised garden beds along with graveled pathways present a vegetable garden that even a HOA might approve!

Most of us can’t start out with such an amazing raised bed gardenscape, but it’s a natural process as we garden over time, to steadily improve our garden beds, landscape and success.

Miniature Wood Raised Garden Planters – 20″ High Mini

Miniature raised garden planters are great for large plants, edible landscaping or foodscaping shrubs and compatible herb gardens.

RAISED GARDEN BEDS BENEFITS – RECAP

• ATTRACTIVE: Raised gardens are one of the most attractive types of garden beds, especially for vegetable gardening where Homeowners Associations HOA gardening rules might restrict growing vegetables.
• EASIER: It’s easier in many ways, including –
  • saves back and knees
  • great for herb gardening, especially near the kitchen door
  • keeps invasive plants under control, such as mints
• WHEELCHAIR ACCESSIBLE: Allows those who are wheelchair bound or less mobile to still get out to enjoy some of the many health benefits of gardening therapy.
• GARDENING: it’s easier for:
  • planting
  • tending
  • weeding
  • harvesting
• SOIL:
  • Quality – It’s easier to build specific good quality soil to help your plants thrive.
  • Temperature – The soil in a raised bed garden warms earlier in the spring and it stays warm in the fall longer.
  • No tilling
  • No compacted soil
• RODENT RESISTANT: You can line raised garden beds with rodent-proof materials to help protect your plants from the ravages of rodents that tunnel under and destroy your plants.
  • rodents like moles and voles can climb up over the side of a low raised bed. If you have rodent issues, you might do best to build a raised garden bed on legs.
• SLOPES & HILLS: Raised beds can be constructed for level growing space on uneven terrain. Steep hills can be great locations for constructing a retaining wall type of raised garden bed.
• TREE ROOTS: Tree roots can really interfere with in ground garden beds and raised beds can help\

Gardening Around Tree Roots

In round problems areas can include garden pots near trees. The trees love gardens and grow stronger by sending their roots into gardeng to soak up the extra rich soil nutrients. While this helps keep trees happy, the roots can quickly intrude into garden beds.

Fall is a good time for garden bed makeovers where and as needed. So part of our fall garden maintenance and preparations included two recent raised bed renovations over a couple weekends.

Raised Garden Bed Renovation – Blocking Tree Roots

A 3’ X 8’ raised bed was cleaned out and renovated with additional organic matter, compost, and organic garden fertilizer. The soil was removed in sections, and any exposed tree roots clipped.

To block future roots, a new layer of weed fabric and cardboard laid in the bottom. The soil was returned, top-dressed with organic material and slow release Espoma Garden Tone fertilizer (3-4-4), and then mixed with a spade fork.

Refurbished Raised Garden Beds

In the first row, Egyptian Walking Onions were planted. These will carry over into the spring growing season with their unique growing habit referred to as “walking” and are a part of our expanding crops of perennial vegetables.

The second row, which is already sprouting, was planted with a Lacinato kale, called Dazzling Blue Kale. This sturdy kale is known for its winter hardiness and colorful display of blue and purple leaves. 

Raised beds offer a simple and effective way to create a healthy and productive garden by manipulating the growing environment for the better.
~Joe Lamp’l, author, Host-Growing a Greener World Show

Disadvantages of Raised Garden Beds

They need to be built. With all the advantages of raised garden beds, just about the only disadvantage is that they need to be built. You need to invest time and money into the materials and construction.

However the good news is that the materials are typically cheap and raised beds are easy to build. When it comes to the time involved, you’re going to be investing that in tilling and weeding with the traditional approach to gardening.

They need more watering. Another potential downside is that raised beds typically require more watering, but it’s not much of a problem if you remember to water regularly, or better yet, set up a sprinkler on a timer.

Ideas for Yard Gardens With Raised Garden Beds

If you live in an area with restrictive Home Owner Association (HOA) rules when it comes to gardening, there are creative ways to work around that. Creating lovely raised garden beds that integrate into the landscape is one way.

Raised Bed Gardens in a Thriving New Zealand Yard Garden

In the video that follows the context and brief tips, you’ll see the amazing yard garden of two beginning gardener brothers in New Zealand. Raised bed gardens is just one of the many ways they’re optimizing growing on a small hillside parcel of land.

The brothers both work full time and so they’ve structured their garden ecosystem so well that it’s taking them only about two hours each per week to tend to it!! Of course most of us enjoy being out in our garden as much as possible, but if your time is limited, it’s good news that you can still manage a garden.

Start with a garden plan and good soil to give your garden the best chance to thrive.

A Backyard Garden of Eden and Only 4 Hours per Week

Of course there are some differences from growing in the northern hemisphere versus the southern. Their growing season may also be different and longer than some of ours.  

The New Zealand winter is our summer and their north is our south. But when it comes to getting the most out of less space, this is a fantastic example that can benefit any gardener.

This hillside raised bed garden scape is a beautiful sight to behold.

Now for an inspiring 4:42 minute tour of an incredible flourishing garden by first time, newbie gardener brothers. Sit back and enjoy this delightful and informative tour by PodGardening.co.nz.^[1]https://www.podgardening.co.nz/august-2015.html

You Can Garden for Profit, Even on Small Plots

If you enjoyed this, you may also enjoy this article on a small organic farm on just 1/8 acre!

Or this family of four feeding themselves on a 1/4 acre urban homestead with food leftover to sell. They’re growing 7,000 pounds of food and earning approximately $20k per year with plenty leftover for themselves.

Not bad when the majority of your food is free! Now that’s a solid retirement plan… planting for retirement! Join the Planting for Retirement Facebook group.

How to Build a Raised Bed Garden with Benches

We’ve heard from a number of folks saying their knees, back or age wouldn’t allow them to garden so much any more. That’s definitely an advantage in raised garden beds. It places the planters at a reasonable level for you to be able to tend your garden without squatting and hardly any bending or stooping.

But you can take that further and make it even more convenient. Whether it’s for you or an elderly parent or neighbor, this idea will help you spend more enjoyable hours gardening.

Raised Bed Garden With Benches – How to Video

In less than 2 minutes you can gain a good overview of what’s involved in this video by Bonnie Plants. Looks really cool and functional too.

Raised Bed Garden with Seats, image by Bonnie Plants

List of Materials

• 1 – 2 x 2 x 8 board
• 3 – 2 x 4 x 8 boards
• 8 – 2 x 6 x 8 boards
• 2 – 2 x 8 x 8 boards
• 3 – 1-lb boxes 2½-inch deck screws
• 1 – 1-lb box 3-inch deck screws

List of Tools

• miter saw or circular saw*
• drill/driver
• clamps
• square
• measuring tape

*Or you can have lumber pre-cut at home improvement store.

You can find complete directions for this project plus download a PDF from Bonnie Plants^[2]https://bonnieplants.com/library/build-raised-bed-with-benches/.

Contributions from the Community – Various Styles of Raised Beds and Planters

Carol Wilkinson says she loves her container garden. You can see several variations on the raised bed theme in Carol’s photo. She’s got half barrels on two tiers of blocks and various other pots, planters and containers. It’s so much easier tending the raised planters!

Cinder Block Raised Garden Beds

Donna Ramsey installed a cinder block raised bed garden in late March / Early April. She plans to use plastic pipe arches to extend her growing season. Great idea!

Cinder blocks are easy to construct and maintain, plus provide additional perimeter “pots”. You can fill the hollows in the blocks with soil which are the perfect for planting herbs and flowers as well as a place to anchor trellises for beans and other climbing plants.

Give Raised Garden Beds a Try

Whether you’re a square foot, lasagna, straw bale, Ruth Stout style no-till, deep mulch gardener, there are all kinds of reasons to try out raised beds. Even a market gardener earning a living from your garden, can benefit from raised bed gardening, especially for growing herbs, lettuce and leafy greens.

Whether for vegetable gardening or ornamental plants, raised beds add beauty and landscape design to your yard and garden. Giving your plants rich soil, amendments, pH, air, moisture, and space – it’s like the garden version of Four Seasons for your plants!

Raised Bed Gardens – the ultimate in container gardening!

Wishing you great gardens and healthy harvests.