Now that's a raised bed!

Building raised beds for your garden – whether for vegetables or flowers – can be as complicated or as simple as you like.  From rustic railroad ties to cinder blocks to decorative landscaping stones, whatever you feel fits into your landscaping theme can be used to hold in a few more inches of amended, delicious soil to cultivate your crop.

Our adventure into creating raised beds began in order to get our plants roots up out of the hard packed clay that is the norm in our region.  As we amended the garden beds with compost and peat moss to lighten and enrich the soil, we ended up with garden ‘mounds’ instead of garden ‘beds’.  These mounds were not particularly attractive and were irresistibly inviting to the nearby grasses and local invasive weeds.  We yearned for a cleaner, easier to maintain, attractive, durable, economical and space efficient solution.

Having drooled over many episodes of Jamie: At Home, Jamie Oliver’s beautiful brick raised beds at his home was what really inspired us to take action.  Unlike Jamie, we have a typical suburban back yard and limited funds with which to build raised beds, so we knew the beds would not be brick.  Sigh.

Considering the criteria for the raised beds I sited above and planning for a base raised bed size of 16 feet by 4 feet and ultimately 12 to 18 inches tall, here is what our research revealed:

• Cinder Block: Cinder Blocks are readily available at just about any local home improvement store.  They are not particularly expensive and are certain to last a long time. For around $80 we could build a bed with a 16′ x 4′ internal dimension.  The rubs here are that we would need to provide a level base upon which to lay the blocks (lots of work in a sloping location) and we would be left with an unfinished top edge of block holes requiring another $70 or more to cap attractively.  Our final decision to look elsewhere for a solution was based on the fact that the external dimensions of the bed would be 17.5′ x 5.5′ due to the width of the blocks.  In our yard, the compounding width effect would diminish the number and spacing of beds we could create and still have enough yard for play.
• Landscaping Blocks: Landscaping blocks come in a vast array of colors and sizes to choose from.  If your main concern is the appearance of your beds, these blocks would be good choices.  For our consideration, landscaping blocks have the same drawbacks as cinder blocks, and they cost 3 to 8 times as much.
• Pressure Treated Lumber: Less expensive than blocks of any sort, pressure treated lumber is easy to build with and promised to last a good long while.  There are some scientific studies that have shown that the ‘leaching’ of the chemicals used in pressure treated lumber is very small, and little or no trace of it shows up in vegetables grown near it except in the case of root vegetables such as carrots are growing within inches.  I don’t really what to have to worry about where I grow my carrots, so no pressure treated lumber in my garden.
• Builder Grade Lumber:  The inexpensive pine boards that are sold in every home improvement store were an attractive option.  For a total cost of $70 for lumber and stakes to build a 16′ x 4′ x 12″ raised bed that was less expensive than a cinder block bed and took up 1 1/2 feet less space!  The life span of the pine was questionable, though.  Would it last a year?  Two?  Five?  It would definitely rot rather quickly based on how long my tomato stakes lasted (two years).  Is there a better solution?
• Engineered Lumber:  Sort of like ‘Engineered Hardwood Floors’, what I am talking about are decking products that are made out of plastics, resins and wood pulp.  These products will last indefinitely and have the same ‘low profile’ advantages as other lumber.  Sitting down to do the math, I found that our 16 foot raised bed would cost nearly $250 and would then only be 10 inches deep.

The answer came one day while our family was perusing one of our favorite stores:  Tractor Supply Company.   We were wandering around the outside portion of the store brainstorming creative uses for 1000 gallon galvanized water troughs (hot tub?), wire cattle fencing (Garden trellising?) and other such utilitarian treasures when we happened upon at huge stack of fencing boards.  Sixteen foot long, rough-hewn Oak boards.  Heavy, hard and beautiful, and at only $8.99 each!  I quickly calculated our raised bed cost to be $60 including the 2″ x 2″ x 18″ surveying stakes we would need to fix the beds in place.  The best deal yet!  The Oak will definitely outlast the pine lumber and is less expensive to boot.  We have a winner!

Two of our 16 x 4 foot raised beds constructed from rough-hewn oak fence boards.

More details and pictures on how to assemble a raised bed from oak fence boards are on the way!

~The Suburban Hayseed.