Raised Bed Gardening: Be The Envy Of The Neighborhood

Raised bed gardening will provide you with the unique opportunity to have a garden that will be the envy of the neighborhood. You will produce more, have higher quality vegetables and spend less time maintaining them. All of the work is done the first time your raised beds are created and you will enjoy the fruits of your labor for years to come.

1. Reasons for Raised Beds - Creating a raised bed gardening system is a fantastic way to control the soil you use, control weeds and produce the most garden vegetables and flowers in the smallest space possible. Raised bed gardening allows you to easily control the environment in which your garden plants grow - temperature and moisture. Raised bed gardens allow you to start your garden sooner and extend the growing season by green housing the raised bed. Raised bed gardening additionally makes it very easy to fertilize and control any types of garden pests that might otherwise damage your garden plants.

2. Materials for Raised Bed Gardening

A limited number of materials are required to create a raised bed for gardening - To build one 4'x8' Raised Bed:

- (3) 2"x12" 8 foot long treated wood from any local lumber yard (12) Screws or long nails (24) small nails or tacks string or twine

- Optional: These are used for creating a greenhouse effect over beds and controlling weeds - Roll of clear plastic, stakes, clothes pins (clip type) and black plastic.

3. Building the Raised Bed - Take one of the 3 pieces of wood and cut it in half - creating two 4ft end pieces. Now just create a box by nailing or screwing the four pieces of wood together. When you are finished you will have a 4'x8' box that stands 12" high. Find a good location, consider amount of sun and mark off a spot that is 4x8 feet for your raised bed. Either by hand or with a rototiller prepare the area, digging at least a foot deep. If the soil is poor you may want to add things to improve the drainage before placing the raised bed over the area.

4. Create great soil for your Raised Bed - Having great soil filling the raised bed is the key to having a fantastic garden. Use a combination of regular garden soil from your yard, compost, perlite, manure, etc. so that the soil in your raised bed box is rich for growing garden vegetables and/or flowers. You can purchase garden soil additives at the lumber yard, department store or local greenhouse.

5. Finishing Touches - Fill your bed with your soil mixture. Once the garden soil is in, place small nails every 12" around the top and run your string to create one foot squares. These act as dividers and planting guides for your raised beds, also referred to as square foot gardening. Now you are ready for planting. If you are planting a little earlier than usual, you may want to greenhouse your raised beds if the weather is a bit cold. Merely place stakes around the bed at the edges, cover with plastic and hold it in place with clothes pins.

Another nice touch is to place a dripper hose that runs up and down the rows of your raised beds for an instant irrigation system.

I have been using raised bed gardens for years and would never go back to traditional ways. Once established, raised beds require minimal time year after year. One can vary the size of their raised bed(s) to create a very well organized and designed layout. Give raised bed gardening a try - you will love it!