Raised vegetable bed material

[Nic]

I am almost ready:

• Space is the garden has been earmarked for growing fruits and veg.
• Top soil and manure
• seeds.

I am struggling to find reasonably priced material to actually build the raised beds within my budged (£50-£60 max).

That would be for 2 raised beds measuring 1m x 2.4m x 30-40cm

Would log rolls work from my local garden centre work as a raised vegetable edge? They're are pressure treated, relatively cheap compared to garvel boards, sleepers, bricks...

Help...

Thanks

Nic

[Maf]

Deck boards are good and last ages.

Focus do them for about a fiver.

They're 2.4m long and 15cm high so if you cut some in half for the shorter length you'd get 2 beds 2.4m x 1.2m x 30cm from 12 boards in budget for £60.

Find a friendly member of staff and convince them that you recently moved home (or are over 60) and you can get a 10% discount card.

Old scaffolding boards would be cheaper if you can find a supply but deck boards look well posh

[Nic]

Superb. Thanks Maf.

Nic

[zazen999]

EEK
I buy 1m boards from the reclaim yard at 50 p each; I then make up square boxes for £2 each and just put them together to make beds.

Do try a reclaim yard if you can before a garden centre; you could save a bomb. Or all a local scaffold company and you could get a load of old ones for free as Maf says.

[JO,JO]

raised beds

hi have just put two raised beds in my garden,my partner constructed them we went to a timber merchants for the wood and then he put plumbers piping on the top and tied netting over them, as we have alot of cats and birds around!!
it cost around 350 pounds in total including the compost we used famyard manure and multi purpose compost with john innes and sterilised top soil,i cant wait to get started i may have been a bit earlyith my seeds but my hispi cabbage seedlings are up and also have some tomatoes seedling and pepper seedlings in the greenhouse,i am so excited!

if anyone has any advice re what works better in raised beds that would be much appreciated

i have a dustbin with first earlies in and have 4 potatoe buckets with several varieties of first earlies

[Nic]

Good news. I have found a local farm that can sell recycled wood at very good prices. Thanks for all the advice.

[chuffa]

Nic, have you tried scaffolding companies. They have to get rid of them when they get too worn and are sometimes happy to give them away free of charge and may only ask for a delivery charge. I managed to get hold of about thirty boards, these helped me to make ten raised beds, all 10ft x 4ft. Its worth a try.

[Herbie]

Hi Nic

You can also approach factory outlets for old pallets, they usually let you have them for free. These work well for square planters as well.

I use a raised bed system, you can grow most things if you have enough space. One thing to consider is crop rotation, so you don't plant crops in the same place twice, over a four year cycle.

My raised beds were an initial experiement to see if we could grow veg last year, we managed to grow loads. Can't wait to see how we get on this year.

[gigleypants]

We have just finished our second raised bed in the garden .... We used Breeze blocks as we were building on top of concrete (2 high all the way round) and left gaps in the bottom ones for drainage .... black weed fabric at the bottom with a layer of stones on top .... then filled up with manure, topsoil and compost (see blog for pics) .... will let you know how it goes but if its any thing like the 1st one it will do just fine.