Raised bed gardening is a great way to develop food or blossom , whether you live on a large lot or have only a balcony or pack of cards for garden . We ’ve gotten many questions about how to build up raised bed garden . The good word is , it ’s really sluttish ( swear me , I ’m not mechanically skillful and I ’ve built a bunch of them ) and you only need a few peter . This is the first of two posts on building raise beds . you’re able to also find gobs of styles and ideas for raised bed on YouTube .
Why Raised Beds ?
If you have a distance on the ground where you want a raised seam , build up a introductory box seat with no bottom is the easiest type of enkindle layer to make . Why would you create advance bed gardens if you have infinite in the ground ? One reason is to control the land . With raised beds you add a ground mix of your choice to the garden - or you could usethe lasagna methodto get across up short or dope - filled dirt with a garden loge . There are artistic reason for elicit bottom gardens , too . The garden box give your vegetable area a delineate flavour . If you put more than one box out , it can be ornamental with way between the beds and maybe a fencing around the garden . Because of the improved soil , raised beds are more productive and the woods gives you something to attach Gallus gallus conducting wire or other fence to in ordination to keep out critters .
It’s not fancy, but a basic garden box like this (it’s upside down in the photo) will be productive for years when filled with compost and good soil.
The Really Basic Box
Building the basic box seat is simple . For the bed show below , I bought three 2 - by-10 column inch board , about 10 foot farseeing , and three 2 - by-4 in instrument panel of the same length . The guys at the timber yard cut one of each width of board in half , so I stop up with two brusk boards ( 5 feet ) and two foresighted boards ( 10 feet ) of each type . To build the box , I measured and drilled fender holes for each stage of connection . ( oil production pilot holesis the key to nonplus things together tight . ) Then , using deck gaoler , I attached the board to each other . When the basic box was together , I added some 2 - by-4s I had around as recession bracing piece . It does n’t show in the photo but I subsequently added more bracing pieces in the middle of the box for redundant constancy because it ’s a pretty big corner . These pieces are tall than the box ( in the photo , the box is upside down ) and they playact as posts anchor the box in the ground . When you put the box in the garden , dig holes for the posts , deteriorate the box seat in and satisfy around it to get it plane .
The whole job took less than two hours . you may utilize narrower 1 - by boards , if you ’d care and you may customise the size of your box to whatever your space allow . The canonic box I have in my current garden are 4 feet by 4 feet and endure about 20 inches tall .
Step one is to form the box, making sure it will fit on the plywood bottom.
The Deck Side Garden Box
build up a garden box for your deck ( picture at the top of the post ) is standardized to building the canonic boxful , except you add up a bottom to it and some slat below the bottom to keep the box off of the deck . In this example , the homeowner purchased six 1 - by-8 - by-8 - foot - prospicient cedar tree boards for the sides , two 2 - by-2 - by-8 foot circuit board for the inner and bottom supporting piece and a piece of plyboard for the bottom .
He trim down each of the 1 - by-8 boards into a 2 - infantry duration and a 6 foot - duration . He cut each of the 2 - by-2s into four lengths - the ones inside the box are about 16 inch each and the ones below the box are about 22 inch each .
Support pieces go into each corner of the box and are screwed to each side of the box. Having a helper makes the job much easier!
Using wood mucilage , he form two of the 6 animal foot opus and two of the 2 human foot distance into a basic box ( above ) . He did this on top of his plyboard composition to make certain they fit properly and were level . He put supports inside each corner of the box and chicane the plank to the financial support piece ( below ) . To build the other two box layers , he contribute the sides on top of each other , attaching the side opus to each other and to the support using deck screws . As you may see , he had a helper , which really makes the job much easier . The final loge is about 16 inches deep .
After completing the box , the householder attach the plywood to the bottom with deck of cards screws and then attached four strips of 2 - by-2 lumber to the bottom to keep the box off the deck of cards . He also drilled several holes in the bottom to let drainage and stapled landscape fabric to the bottom of corner to hold in soil . Because this boxwood is made of cedar tree , it will last a retentive time .
If you ’d like a double decker pack of cards or patio garden , trythis labor from Garden Answer . I made it several age ago and it adds some height and a productive place to grow herbs to my patio . It looks skillful , too , even after several years on the terrace .
Slats on the bottom of the box hold it off the deck preventing damage to the deck. The homeowner drilled several large holes in the plywood to allow soil to drain. He also installed landscape fabric.
Want to learn more ? gibe out our blog position onhow to work up a raised layer with leg .
Mary Lahr Schieris a Minnesota - based garden writer .
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When complete, drainage holes were drilled, landscape fabric attached inside and soil added. It’s time to get growing!
A two-tiered raised bed the author built a few years ago.
