Raised bed gardening.

Raised Bed Gardening


Raised beds work for small and large areas to plant vegetables and flowers. Raised beds  help keep weeds from your garden, provide great drainage, helps stop soil compaction and serves as a barrier to pests such as slugs and snails. The beds can be made with different material s and sizes. I find that a 4 x 8 bed works great for me.

Make sure the lumber that you use to make your beds are not a treated lumber. This type of lumber maybe good for a deck or fence but not your garden. The lumber has chemicals on it that can leach into your garden over time. Instead buy naturally rot resistant wood like redwood, red cedar or black locust. Another alternative is to buy untreated lumber and cover it in linseed oil that will not harm you. It is a cheaper alternative.


Once you purchased or built your beds you will need to remove the sod or grass from the area. Now you need to level the beds onto the rectangle you have cleared and stack it down. Then dig down another foot or so to loosen the soil. Next, you will need to purchase something to add to the soil like peat, compost, mulch etc. I found that the stuff that worked like a dream for me is Mushroom Mulch! I purchased a truck load from the local garden center here. I then mixed it into the soil about half and half. Once the soil is mixed avoid stepping on the bed. It will compact your soil which is BAD!!


Also, considering when planning your beds you will need pathways between. We use a push mower in our yard so we made sure we could get our mower or wheel barrow between the beds. The pathways can be mulched, stoned or left with grass. 


The other thing that I did was buy rabbit fence and nail it around each bed!! I had beautiful lettuce in the Spring until the rabbits and such from our neighborhood started feasting on it. So, consider the fence. Raised beds require frequent watering in the warm weather because of the great drainage in the soil. Soaker hoses or a gentle shower every evening works too.


Good luck with your garden this year! Let me know how it turns out. I can't wait to get mine started.