Raised Garden- anyone?

[WindyCityMom]

Does anyone have a raised garden? Do you have photos?

We have a small plot of land that will be dedicated to our garden- which is a shared garden with my DHs family, though I have been the one doing the seeding and preparing. It is roughly 2.5'x16'. Not huge, but big enough to grow a few things and see nature at its best.

FIL wants to raise the garden bed, basically by stacking bricks about 2' off the ground, enclosing the space, and filling it up with dirt. He wants to do this because we have kids in the yard and he doesn't want the garden to get trampled.

I personally don't want bricks.. if there are kids in the yard (including mine!) that's a recipe for disaster and a horrible accident. I have read about using wooden boards to enclose the space.. my main questions are:

-Does anyone have any resources regarding raised gardens?
-What kind of boards should I use?
-What do I fill the enclosed space with?
-Are there any upsides or downsides to raised gardens?
-What is your experience with raised gardens?

TIA!

[kittywitty]

I have both brick and wood raised beds. My brick ones are not raised that high, though. More just enclosing the soil. The All New SFG book has good instructions, or on Pioneer Woman's site she has a tutorial somewhere. That's the one I used.

Here's my flickr, you can see some of it. http://www.flickr.com/photos/36722567@N06/

So far they are working fine. I prefer them to just tilled soil right now (we have one bed tilled). I filled mine with top soil and composted manure. Just bags from the store.

[KristyDi]

I have one cinder block bed and one wooden one. I plan to have more in the future, most likely cinderblock since they're cheap and require no skill to build. Here's a pic.

The pioneer woman has instructions on building wooden raised beds.

-Does anyone have any resources regarding raised gardens?
Check out Square Foot Gardening. I used ideas from there.

-What kind of boards should I use?
I used landscaping timbers.

-What do I fill the enclosed space with?
Mine are filled with a mix of garden soil, composted manure and peat moss all from the local garden center.

-Are there any upsides or downsides to raised gardens?
I chose raised beds because there is supposed to be less weeding and the idea of amending my red GA clay yard into anything like good garden soil made me very tired.

-What is your experience with raised gardens?
This is my 1st year with raised beds. So far so good.

[kriket]

I have a variation of raised beds, they are only slightly raised
Does anyone have any resources regarding raised gardens?
Square foot gardening, it is great for this kind of garden
-What kind of boards should I use?
Pressure treated if you want it to last. If you don't mind replacing them, and don't want the chemicals, whatever you can find
-What do I fill the enclosed space with?
Dirt I use horse poo. Others use compost, vermiculite and other wild dirts. I have an abundance of totally composted horse poop, so it's what I use.
-Are there any upsides or downsides to raised gardens?
Upside- If you have crap dirt, it doesn't matter! Downside, it dries out faster, if it frosts, some say it can damage the roots quicker than if they were in the earth. Some times they can be awkward to get to the things in the middle.
-What is your experience with raised gardens?
I like them over all. We have concrete under some of our yard, and we put raised beds there. You don't have to till them, but sometimes the dirt "disappears" after the season, you seem to be constantly having to add more. You have to do this anyways, you should be adding compost and such when you are turning the bed.

[Quaniliaz]

You can use white oak or cedar (untreated) and they will last a very long time. Mine (white oak) are 5 years, without any deterioration what-so-ever. My dad has some white oak beds that are 15 years - and still look great. I would not use treated wood near food - I'd be concerned about residues.

[kittywitty]

Don't use treated boards! You don't want those chemicals in your garden!

[Mrs.Burke]

this post gave me an idea what to do with my garden

[northwoods1995]

Oh KristyDi I like that cinder block bed. I want to try to find some cinder blocks and then plants marigolds and other stuff in the cinder block holes too.

We have a couple of raised beds made with untreated lumber. It wasn't very difficult at all. I'll have to try to put a picture on photobucket.

[WindyCityMom]

nak

thx! i dont want to use treated wood, so maybe cedar would be best.

I really like the cinderblock idea! I could put herbs and fowers in them!

[KristyDi]

Originally Posted by northwoods1995

Oh KristyDi I like that cinder block bed. I want to try to find some cinder blocks and then plants marigolds and other stuff in the cinder block holes too.

We have a couple of raised beds made with untreated lumber. It wasn't very difficult at all. I'll have to try to put a picture on photobucket.

I did that today actually. Here's a pic. It takes more dirt to fill those holes than I thought. I have to go get another bag to finish tomorrow.

Ask around on the cinder blocks. I got those from my FIL and found another friend with some she's willing to give me if I want to build another bed. Even if you have to buy them they're only $1.25 each at Home Depot and Lowes.

ETA a better pic

[WindyCityMom]

Ah, thanks! Good to know they're cheap- I suppose I could ask on freecycle as well.

[lightheart]

I would reconsider using the bricks, I know you are thining the bricks are a hard surface for little ones to fall on but so are the boards, the kids could get hurt on them too. One day there will be nails or screws sticking through them also because the boards start to rot down. If your concerned that the bricks will come tumbling down you could morter them together to hold them tight.

If the bricks your going to use is scavanged from somwhere - being reused thats a big plus too, because using new wood is cutting down that many more trees... maybe try to find old salvaged wood from an old barn or building that you could use - get into the issue of treated or untreated there though.

I like raised beds, we have them, mine now are just mounded beds because I don't want to sacrifice any space with an edge. When we lived on the farm we had terraced the hillside on the downhill side with concrete blocks and in a way building raised on one side beds.

Raised beds warm up quicker and dry out from the winter wet sooner.

[WindyCityMom]

Well, DH nixed my cinderblocks idea because he said they're ugly

I think my FIL is getting a bunch of used bricks from someone he knows so we're likely going to go that route- cedar isn't cheap and that's what we'd have to use.

lightheart- I hadn't even thought of the nail issue! thanks

[lmonter]

I personally don't want bricks.. if there are kids in the yard (including mine!) that's a recipe for disaster and a horrible accident.
Depends on how klutzy your family is. We have one cinderblock enclosed bed. I plant flowers in the little openings of the bricks. But. It's a pain to weed. I lean on the bed edges - brick, wood - and the brick one isn't near as comfy on my hands/knees to attack.
I have a 6.5yo, a 4yo who has permanent dents in his muscles on his head from headers into things in his younger years and a 22mo who all run willy nilly around the yard. They tend to just run around things and use the raised beds as an obstacle course.

-Does anyone have any resources regarding raised gardens?
Building, nah, hubby's really handy so he just went for it. I told him where to dig up sod, he took it from there. As for growing goodies, if lasagna gardening is your thing, there's a container book by Patricia Lanza, or you might find some tidbits in Square Foot Gardening.

-What kind of boards should I use?
Untreated wood. Yeah, they'll eventually become compost, but you're not putting creosote or anything into your food (railroad ties anyone?). Cedar may last marginally longer, but eh. We just have the generic stuff hubby found at Lowe's or Home Depot - whoever had the straighter boards at the time so it'd all square up.

-What do I fill the enclosed space with?
Dirt/compost/aged manure/whatever. Preferably screened stuff so there's not logs of big rocks. Hitting a man's size-12 shoe-sized rock with a trowel (and shovel!) sucks.

-Are there any upsides or downsides to raised gardens?
May need to water a little bit more, but nothing too scary. You can build up more friable soil for things like carrots, radishes, potatoes, etc. Especially if you have clay/rock soil like I do. We joke our yard grows rocks. But it's not really a joke. Filling a raised garden can be a pain - literally and figuratively. Our backyard is fenced, and the fence opening isn't big enough to allow our truck in. So all the dirt/compost/wood chips has to be carted in via wheelbarrow or garden cart. It's definitely physical labor.

-What is your experience with raised gardens?
Rock on.
Weeds are a pain. Also, if you can dig up another 6+ inches on the outside and backfill with pea gravel, it may help deter weeds creeping in on the side and trying to take over the raised bed. Btdt. We haven't gotten around to the pea gravel thing, but yeah. Bermuda grass sucks when it won't go away and tries to take over my 100sf of strawberry beds.

[DirtRoadMama]

I went with treated wood. CCA was the compound that contained arsenic which used to be used to treat wood. That lumber was banned by the EPA in 2003-2004, so anything you buy for consumer use is not going to contain CCA. The new formula contains higher amounts of copper, so you have to be sure to use fasteners (nails or screws) that are designed to be used in the new type of lumber (copper is extrememly corrosive to certain metals), but no longer contains arsenic.

There is a lot of research out there that talks about soil samples of the soil within the new type of treated lumber. I'm not saying it's the right choice for everyone (personally, I'd go for brick or concrete block, as those will last forever, and I'm all for just doing something once), but I do suggest doing more research before you finalize your wood decision. I was able to build each 4x4 bed for 1/4 the cost of using cedar.

I would have gone with brick or concrete block if I knew that I would stick with the square foot gardening method (it's my first year trying it).

Good luck!!!

[SamiPolizzi]

Like several PPs mentioned, you should get the Square Foot Gardening book. It makes it very simple and straightforward.

I'm doing a series of small (2x4) raised beds. I'm still in the process, but I'll post pictures when I'm done. There are going to be 6 that are 6in tall and 2 that are 12in tall. So far I have one bed that I planted half with carrots and half with snap peas, and another bed of potatoes. I used the "mel's mix" from the book- 1/3 peat moss, 1/3 vermiculite, 1/3 compost. So far, so good, but it's still too early to tell.

[wemoon]

I actually used a raised garden kit that I got from Lowes. The cost was so-so, but I figured that the supplies to build one myself, plus the time/effort to build it was worth the cost of the kits. They are made of cedar, look super cute, and took 5 minutes to put together. This is my first year with them, but so far I am liking it. It just looks tidier IMO and keeps people from trampling through the garden.

[Shantimama]

We had a raised garden in our old house and I loved everything about it!

[WindyCityMom]

thanks so much for the info and ideas everyone!!

[Abraisme]

We have built our raised beds out of 6"x6" juniper beams. Juniper is naturally resistant to decomposition (like cedar) and will last up to 50 years outside before it starts to break down.

Here is a PIC of what our large raised garden bed looks like. We are about to create 5 more smaller raised beds (picture) in this space. They will look different than the picture when finished, but you can get the idea.