Home » Gardening » Gardening Tips » 15 Easy DIY Raised Bed Garden Ideas
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Want to start or expand your garden? You’ll love these easy DIY raised bed garden ideas! Step by step tutorials on how to build raised bed gardens for your flower or vegetable garden using budget friendly materials!
I’ve always loved growing in raised bed gardens, there are just so many benefits to using raised beds.
They help the soil to warm up faster in the spring and have fewer weeds and pests, plus they also look beautiful in your front yard or backyard gardens.
While you can buy premade raised beds you can save a lot of money by building your own. Then it’s also easy to customize the garden size and style to be exactly what you want.
If you already have lots of natural materials such as rocks and logs you can build garden beds really cheap. If your budget allows then you can select your favorite wood or other building materials like concrete blocks, or cedar fence boards to make your new gardens.
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Easy DIY Raised Bed Garden Ideas
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Easy Cedar Split Rail Raised Beds
Easy raised bed gardens made with cedar fence rails. These raised beds are quick to make and full of country charm.
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Raised Bed Without A Frame
One really cheap way to make a raised bed garden is to not use side material. Instead, raise up your garden with layers of cardboard and compost like this easy no dig garden.
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DIY Raised Garden Bed
Cute raised bed garden idea using mini lumber ties. Easily stack them as high as you need for your garden. These would also make great front yard flower beds.
These raised beds are elevated on legs making it much easier to garden without bending. They’re easy to build and will look amazing in your backyard garden.
Easy to make L shaped raised beds are a great way to maximize your growing space. Use them along your home, shed, fence, or arrange them close together and fence them in for a compact growing space.
Using concrete blocks is a fast way to build raised beds in your backyard. If you want to build a garden without tools or carpentry skills using cinder blocks is a great option.
Raised beds built from rocks are perfect if you love rustic or country style gardens. Rocks also warm up quickly in the sun and help to hold the heat keeping your soil warmer in the spring and fall.
Cedar is a great wood choice for building long lasting raised beds. Easy to make with simple carpentry skills these garden beds look amazing in a country style or formal backyard garden.
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Kim
Kim Mills is a homeschooling mom of 6 and lives on an urban homestead in Ontario, Canada. Blogging at Homestead Acres she enjoys sharing tips to help you save money, grow and preserve your own food.
Raised beds made of cinder blocks or concrete blocks
Cinder blocks and concrete blocks are very inexpensive (typically $2 to $3 a piece at home improvement centers), and they make it really easy to build the outline of a raised garden bed.
Here are a few suggestions: Tomatoes: Tomatoes are one of the most popular vegetables to grow in raised beds because they require relatively little space and are easy to care for. Peppers: Like tomatoes, peppers are also relatively easy to grow in raised beds. They prefer well-draining soil and lots of sunshine.
On average, a DIY raised bed constructed from wood will cost $25 to $50 per square foot. To have a wooden raised bed constructed and installed for you, budget for at least $100 per square foot. (Find a kitchen garden company in your area.)
Depending on your budget and gardening goals, you can line the bottom of your raised garden beds with wide-mesh hardware cloth, stainless steel mesh, landscape fabric, burlap sack, or newspaper/cardboard.
Bush type vegetables, such as tomatoes, cucumbers, and beans also do well in raised beds. You can install trellises for vegetables that need support, like some tomatoes and beans. Certain crops, like squash, melons, and sweet corn, usually do better in the ground because they require more space than other vegetables.
Pallet garden beds are a very simple and inexpensive way to create a raised garden. All you need is a pallet, some wood boards, and screws to assemble the pallet garden bed. Making a raised garden bed from pallets is very easy and can be done in just hours.
The smaller pieces are placed on top of the larger pieces to fill space, such as branches and sticks, and then grass clippings, leaves and kitchen scraps. Compost and topsoil are on the top two layers for your raised garden bed so you can start planting as the organic matter beneath decomposes.
Tomatoes should ideally be grown in a raised bed that's at least 15 to 18 inches deep. Many of my clients in Houston are successfully growing tomatoes in 12-inch deep raised garden beds, but their plants tend to be a little stunted compared to plants in deeper beds.
Vegetable Beds: On the other hand, when it comes to vegetable beds, the bed must be approximately 12 to 18 inches deep to ensure adequate depth for the roots of your plants. This is especially important if your raised bed is placed on cement or the patio, which will inhibit roots from growing deeper into the ground.
While generally minor, raised beds do have some disadvantages. Raised beds dry out faster than level garden sites. Accordingly, they have to be watered more frequently in dry weather. Initial construction of the raised bed may take more effort than maintenance of the conventional garden.
Keep beds at least 6 feet from pavement and south-facing walls, which intensify summer heat. HOW LONG DO BEDS LAST? That depends on what they're made of. Beds built with western red cedar can last 10 to 15 years; galvanized steel, 20 years; masonry or plastic composites, indefinitely.
It acts as a physical barrier to block out pernicious weeds. Usually, 2 – 3 layers of cardboard will suffice, though you may want layers in more weed-prone areas. The damp environment created by the cardboard is conducive to earthworms and other beneficial soil microorganisms.
Make sure to do this before you fill the beds with soil and follow the layer of hardware cloth with some landscape fabric for weed control. This way, you'll get all the protection these barriers can provide without sacrificing good drainage or the organic nature of your kitchen garden.
As a rule of thumb, a 4'x8' raised bed that is 6 inches deep requires approximately 8 bags of soil while a 4'x8' raised bed that is 12 inches deep requires approximately 16 bags of soil.
Pine is a cheaper alternative to more expensive types of wood and easy to find in most hardware stores. Keep in mind, however, that pine will have a much shorter life expectancy in your garden than cedar and redwood. Even within wood types, know that there can be some variation.
Build your raised bed with a decay-resistant type of wood, such as cedar, black cherry, oak (bur, chestnut, post, white), black locust, Osage orange, or redwood. (Source: USDA Forest Products Lab) Use a non-wood material such as stones, concrete blocks, bricks, or synthetic lumber.
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