31
2010
Building Garden Beds
An article by 
Now that you’ve decided what to plant and where to plant, it’s time to build your beds!
The most basic technique for creating a garden bed is double digging. As the name implies, double dug beds are carefully turned with a garden shovel once over the whole surface. Some peat moss and/or compost can be sprinkled on top and then the whole bed is dug again. Each round of shoveling should be at least four inches deep.
Our strawberries, garlic, and kale are all relegated to double dug beds. It takes me approximately 1 hour to double dig a 4 foot square bed. My body is achy for a few days after because double digging is hard work!! We line the beds with rocks or bricks if we have them to provide a visual reminder to little feet that plants are growing there.
double digging was the perfect choice for this small lavender bed
A tiller will do the same job as a double digging in far less time with less effort. Most of us backyard gardeners do not have a gas powered tiller easy accessible, but they can be rented. We have never chosen a tiller to avoid the rental fee or the hassle of transporting it.
The next common bed style is the raised bed. Here, sides are built from lumber and dirt is filled in the top. The Pioneer Woman has a great tutorial for building your own raised bed. We follow a similar procedure except we use 2×8 or 2x10s instead of using two layers of 2x4s for the sides.
Sides may be built from treated or untreated lumber, recycled plastic lumber, or cement blocks. Cedar is a naturally occurring wood that resists rot. Plastic lumber will last for a very long time, though it is heavy and costly to transport initially. Cement blocks are a popular choice at community gardens because they can be easily reconfigured or moved.
Some publications will tell you to avoid treated lumber at all costs. I was skeptical so I asked Alex, a material scientist by education and profession, to review research about the safety of treated lumber in the garden. He concludes that vegetables grown in treated lumber beds do not uptake the chemicals in treated lumber. While I still have hesitations about the worker safety of those who make treated lumber, we do use it for our raised beds because it is the cheapest long lasting material.
To anchor or not to anchor? Many plans recommend digging 6 to 12 inch holes and setting posts in them to anchor the sides of the raised bed. Others use stakes. We subscribed to this philosophy for the first few beds we made. It’s not that hard, but we questioned why it was necessary.
In our second round of bed building, we skipped the anchors. In our experience, the raised beds sides do not bow or move. The weight of the soil holds everything in place just fine. If you are looking to save some labor and cost, skipping the corner anchors might be a good choice.
Soil for raised beds can be purchased from a plant nursery, the city, or a dirt and mulch company. If you have a hearty compost bin you can use that too. Last year we filled our beds with soil ‘thrown’ from the Jones topsoil Slinger truck. We mixed in our homegrown compost and some peat moss too. This year we will purchase some compost from Denise at 2Silos farm.
If double dug and raised beds aren’t your style, there are alternative beds. You might plant in a bucket, straw bale, or potato tower. The most recent edition of Mother Earth News details a simple soil bag plan. Several companies make raised bed corners or corners and sides that gardeners need to simply assemble.
Are you building new beds this year? How are your existing beds made?
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Hi! I am Rachel Tayse Baillieul, a home-cooking, backyard-gardening, unschooling, earthy homemaker in Columbus Ohio. Hounds in the Kitchen is where I share my family's adventures. Thanks for joining us!
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I love your beds! We have three (built last year) that are all raised, and with chicken write stapled to the bottom to keep the gophers out. Our vegetables LOVE being in them.
Not sure about lumber costs in your area, but we used redwood. Three vegetable boxes cost us about $400. Yowza!
.-= Kim at Rustic Garden Bistro´s last blog ..Scott’s Seafood, At Home =-.
Thanks for mentioning the chicken wire. We don’t have a problem with gophers here but that is a common solution to burrowing pests.
I was planning on putting a bottom on ours like this one. I’ll also have to put up some chicken wire around the outside, since we have lots of rabbits.
http://frugaldad.com/2010/02/22/square-foot-gardening-grow-your-own-vegetables/
Where would you shop for seeds locally? I was thinking Oakland or Anderson’s.
Oakland is a good source for seeds. I don’t shop at the Anderson’s regularly because it’s fairly far from me but from what I’ve heard they have a great garden section. You can also find seeds of change seeds (organic, many heirlooms) at Clintonville Co-op. Zettler’s downtown has a big selection and sell some by the ounce which can be cheaper.
You basically just want to avoid the big box stores. They have a history of selling seeds that are compromised, including last year’s tomato blight from Lowes/Home Depot/Walmart.
We just inherited an old tiller (actually two) so we won’t have to pay those silly rental fees this year! It feels so hoity toity to have two tillers though so if you ever want to rest your shoulders, let me know. The rental fee is pretty low with us. Maybe a veggie trade deep in the season? Maybe you just keep filling my google reader with some great reading material? I’m easily suggestible. Let me know.
I can see how having tillers would be fun! I’m not sure we need to till anything this year but thanks for the offer.
Oh – and I wish I had thought of chicken wire liners when we built our beds a few years ago. We are going to be rotating dirt (Ridiculous, I know – but we only have a few good places to grow tomatoes and just mixing in compost didn’t work that well last year), so maybe I’ll trick those silly carrot thieves this time!
Maybe there is an obvious answer to this question, but where did you get your lumber? Even Lowe’s, which I generally try to avoid, was a strike out. Apart from cedar, of which they did not have the correct size, they had nothing that they thought would last for more than one season. There have to be some other options, right?
This is my first time with raised beds. I pretty excited about the prospect.
Hi Kevin,
We usually buy lumber from Lowes because it’s closest to us and with a tiny Honda Fit we are often driving with lumber sticking out the window. Most of our beds are built with pressure treated lumber which will definitely last more than one season. Our neighbor built her raised beds with plain pine and they look fine now after installing in April 2009. I’ve read that some people treat pine with linseed oil to add some weather and insect protection.
If you are specifically looking for cedar, I suggest calling Andersons or Sutherlands. Woodwerks would almost definitely have what you want but it will cost more. You could get creative and use multiple boards on a side, perhaps bracing in the middle somehow, from what Lowes stocks.
PS Thanks!
Rachel — this is the first time I visited your site. I really like the helpful hints on the raised gardens.
I have lots of boards and supplies in the barn, so all it will take is some time and muscle!! Will help “build me back up” strength wise, going to have to keep an eye on this houndsinthekitchen site.
thank-you
[...] sales at Lowes. First, most treated lumber is on sale for 40%+ off through April 18. We explained how we build beds and why we choose treated lumber in a post last [...]
Awesome post