raised garden beds

How to Build Raised Garden Beds

Dan General

raised garden beds
Raised Garden “on Wheels”

Cathy Isom has a few important tips for your upcoming gardening season about how to build raised garden beds. That’s coming up on This Land of Ours.

Rooftop Raised Garden

One of the purposes of raised beds is to bring plants up to your level. It’s an easy landscaping solution for anyone who has a bad back. The elevation of raised beds facilitates performance of repetitive plant care tasks, such as weeding, pruning, and harvesting herbs throughout the summer for cooking. In addition, this outdoor workbench will come in handy for the weary gardener.

Some materials to consider for building a raised garden bed should include long-lasting, pressure-treated lumber. For a raised bed devoted to vegetables, opt for a wood such as cedar.  Stone and cinder blocks are another alternative.

Advertisement
Raised Vegetable Beds in a Community Garden

When preparing the ground for a raised bed use a shovel and steel rake to prepare the ground so you’ll have a level ground to work with. When dealing and cutting lumber, always handle with gloves and a mask and safety goggles when cutting.

If you’re going to apply a preservative to the wood for raised garden beds, it’s best to do so at the beginning of the project. To preserve the character of your reclaimed wood, you may consider wood brushing, which can help bring out the unique texture of the wood by removing the soft wood and debris from the grain prior to staining or clear coating. This can help enhance its look and feel without sacrificing its original essence. For raised garden beds meant for vegetables, stick to natural preservatives, such as linseed oil.

I’m Cathy Isom…