How Do You Build a Raised Garden Bed?

Experienced gardeners use raised beds to sidestep a long list of gardening challenges. These controlled experiments in plant parenthood are so easy, in fact, that they're also well-suited to novices picking up a shovel for the first time. . . .

A raised bed is most productive and attractive as a bottomless frame set into a shallow trench. The sides can be almost any durable building material, including rock, brick, concrete and interlocking blocks. Watering troughs or claw-foot tubs can work, as long as they have the capacity and drainage. . . .

To prepare the site, get rid of turf and weeds. Outline the bed dimensions on the ground with chalkline or string, then dig with vertical strokes along the outline, just deep enough to bury about half of your first course of lumber. . . .

Level the earth or gravel layer at the bottom of the bed, then put down a layer of weed-suppressing landscape fabric that extends to the outer edge of the wooden frame. . . .

Build each wall separately, then fasten them together and put the bed into position. Raised-bed builders often sink posts into the ground for stability, either at the inside corners of the bed or halfway along the side walls. . . . A cap railing that runs around the top of the bed ties everything together. Plus, it provides a handy place to set down gardening tools while working, or, when you're done, a seat to admire the fruits of your labor. Bed covers ward off insects and keep plants warm in cool weather.

–“How to Build Raised Garden Beds,”
Fiona Gilsenan

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