Considering a raised bed garden? Below we share why we decided building a raised garden bed was the best option for growing vegetables.

Benefits Of A Raised Bed Garden

There are many benefits to raised bed gardening. Some of the benefits include lifting your plants off the ground for easier access, keeping people from walking on your garden which packs down the soil, and making it harder for critters to reach your plants. You also have more growing options since you will now have great soil to begin with.

Step 1: Choose A Location

The most important part of choosing a location is making sure they will get adequate amounts of sunlight. I chose to put my raised bed on the southern facing side of my house for the best sun exposure. Make sure the location of your raised beds are level and smooth. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but you want to make sure your water goes throughout the bed evenly and doesn’t pool up anywhere. We rented a roto til to help break up the ground where our raised garden beds would be placed.

Step 2: Preparing the soil.

Preparing the soil for gardening can be tricky and if you live in an area with poor soil quality like we do, it’s not likely you’ll yield a harvest anytime soon. It is important to make sure your soil has all the nutrients your plants will need to survive. I used a pre packaged raised garden bed mix, since it is ready to go and makes life easy. This is the brand I recommend, Kellogg 3-cu ft Organic Raised Bed and Potting Mix.

Step 3: Raised bed

We decided to build our raised beds 8 ft. x 4 ft. with a 12 inch depth, which gives us plenty of growing room. It is recommended to build your raised bed a minimum of 6 inches deep, but the deeper the better. You want to make sure to fill your beds up with soil, until there is approximately 2 inches of wood left at the top. Don’t pack your soil tightly. Raised garden beds help keep the soil soft since there is no foot traffic, allowing roots to easily grow deep.

Step 4: Supplies

Below is a list of materials you need to create a cheap & easy DIY raised garden bed. If you already have some of these items on hand then you can cut down on the price of each bed and create more raised beds in your garden. One raised garden bed cost approximately $150 with soil.

3 Top Choice 2 x 12 x 8 Douglas Fir Lumbar $11.63 each

24 “L” shape Galvanized Corner Brace $2.98 each

1 box of 1 1/2 in Course Drywall Screws $6.97 or whatever screws you already have on hand.

10 Raised Bed & Potting Mix Bags, 3-cu ft. $9.98 each

Step 5: Assembly

First you’ll want to cut one of your 2 x 12 x 8’s in half. You should now have two 2 x 12 x 4’s and two 2 x 12 x 8’s. Make a rectangle with your boards and assemble the brackets on the inside. You can move your raised bed to desired location and begin filling with soil.

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