Raised beds!

[VWCamper74]

Thanks for all your ideas and photos! I want to use these particular beds in my front garden more as a feature than for practical veg growing. So they need to look the biz! Any thoughts?

[Bigmallly]

If you want them to look good, use decking 2 deep.

[VWCamper74]

My back garden is shaded by the house so I wanted to put these beds in my front garden - so I am really looking for something quite smart! I want my front garden to look the biz!

Any suggestions? Once I have purchased them, do I out them straight onto the ground or do I dig the turf up? Do I fill them with top soil or something else or a mix? Not quite sure if I am going to fill them with veg or fruit at this point.....

If I do use fruit - will I need a cage..............

I have 2 dogs so mine will definately be a 3 tier raised bed!

[Bigmallly]

So many questions so I'll give you my take on the fruit, I'm assuming you are talking soft fruit.......if you want to feed the family, net 'em......if you want to feed the wildlife don't..........

[Harrod Horticultural]

I thought you might like to see the new raised beds I have built this week in the HH Kitchen Garden. I think you'll agree that they look the biz!
The large bed in the background has strawberries in it and will have Slot and Lock cage put over it to net it from the birds.
The four linked beds will have rotated vegetables in each year.

[rabbit]

I've never seen the fascination with having raised beds unless you need them wheelchair height.

For us, the raised beds were more a state of mind. When we moved there were 3 giant plots, all completely full of weeds. We've moved to a bigger house and garden and there's a whole tonne of work to be done in both taking up all our spare time. Making the beds and defining a manageable space for first time gardeners was a really nice thing for us.

[Bren In Pots]

Rabbit gardening all about what works for you
I've got beds mine are 4ft wide un-raised ones with quarry tile paths inbetween.

[LillyRoseGarden]

Thank you, Bigmally! I put a trellis on this one today.

[LillyRoseGarden]

Yep, very posh!

[Alison]

Mine are just edged beds (about 6") above the general ground level. Soil is good enough to plant straight into so no worries there, thankfully no mobility issues so bending not a problem. However I love the fact that the edges delineates between the path and the beds, it means that me (and any of the many intruders that frequent our plots) are far less likely to tread on the beds and I don't end up with creep between the two areas. Works really well - ours were some cheap timber from a nearby yard and were made by marking out the outline of the bed with string. Double digging the ground and removing the worst of the nasties, adding some well rotted compost and then just placing the edges round the new bed. Think we did the first of them about 5 years ago and I've never regretted it, ever and don't find the problem that some of you report with slugs hiding round the edges.

- bit of an old picture and we've done some work on the paths since then but hopefully it shows what I mean by our edged beds.

[out in the cold]

As newbie gardeners, we throught having raised beds was a must as it defined an area, helped us to keep it manageable and also helped us to train the dogs where they were not allowed to go (although one has since forgotten over the winter and has run through one of the beds the past 3 days running!)

[Bigmallly]

As newbie gardeners, we throught having raised beds was a must as it defined an area, helped us to keep it manageable and also helped us to train the dogs where they were not allowed to go (although one has since forgotten over the winter and has run through one of the beds the past 3 days running!)

There are some interesting facts about raised beds here.

Raised beds / Royal Horticultural Society

[WilliamD]

Just building some new ones this weekend, next to last year's. Used decking boards, screwed to concreted-in posts. All Ronsealed. Bottom edges/surround going on midweek and a load of soil arriving to fill 'em next weekend.

[Newton]

Lots of filling to do William......what are you going to use? The beds look great BTW. They will look fantastic in the summer when everything is growing.......

[Linzy]

Scaffolding boards are fab they are bout 6-8" so make a good raised bed depth. Never buy them from Wood yards, diy places contact scaffolding firms, my partner is a scaff and i get lots of boards for free cause once a little rot sets in they cant be used for health and saftey reasons but are perfectly good for raised beds. Plus they are all already cut to size so you get a couple of four foots and a couple of 8foots couple of screws in each side and you have yourself a easy raised bed. I filled my old ones with well rotted manure and only grew spuds and courgettes and squashes for first year by year two they had lovely soil in them. Make them thin cause you dont want to walk on them. The smaller the bed the less chance of taking shortcut across them