Planks / sleepers for deep beds?

Hi all

My project for the winter is to build some deep veg beds for next season. Where does one get the blanks or sleepers for these?

Thanks

 

I think that railway sleepers add a lot to the width of the bed, and that can steal quite a lot of space. i.e. for every four or five 4' wide beds you get one whole bed less using sleepers :(

 

I agree, sleepers are rather heavy.
Scaffold boards are cheap, but are they treated? How long will they last?

I have built several raised beds using 4 x 2 or 6 x 2 plane d and treated timber from a local supplier.
Most timber merchants carry this and it's not as expensive as you might think plus comes in various lengths up to 4m

I used 3in square fence posts for corners, drilled and countersunk the boards and fastened with galvanised coach screws. End result was really sturdy and pleasing to the eye

 

I wouldn't use sleepers for making raised beds either. Like Kristen says, they're very bulky and the old ones may be toxic.

I made my beds from 47mm X 150mm pressure treated timber. Six X 3m lengths of this timber cost me about £40 and that included delivery.

 

JWK - that was me. Even when I've paid, £3 seems a fair price for 13'6" of 9 x 1.5" timber!

 

This guy has old boards on eBay. 50p or less per foot . Some of his adverts are very entertaining. Sadly he's too far away from me (Liverpool), but I had a hilarious conversation (i.e. irreverent!) with him on the phone.

http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/exvoguemodel/

Ex Vogue Model indeed !!

Search his shop for "allotment" or "raised" to find the used ones.

(Hmmm ... turns out he appears to have had trouble with eBay for the text of his adverts, so in case you missed it he was offering free Pron movies, Moat cleaning and nod-nod-wink-wink receipts with every purchase :D )

 

If you have a timber mill near to you it would be worth a visit, my local one sells off the bits left over from when they are "squaring up" tree trunks before the cut into planks etc.

They call them "Slabs" (Larch) at my loal mill and cost 10p per foot and I'm allowed to sort through and pick my own fom the pile. I've bought some in both 8ft and 6ft lengths for a new raised bed and to finish another project. At these prices an 8ft x 4ft x 1ft bed costs £4.80.

They vary in thinkness from 1-4 inches thick and in width from 5 8 inches wide and are most definately not square, although if you sort through the pile yourself you will find some with cut edges. I intend to nail these to posts, line the bed with old compost bags, fill with soil and plant..job done. Here's a few photos of the timber, you get a nice rustic look too!

Steve...

 

Thanks guys - lots of really useful info there.

Doesn't seem to be anything appropriate on eBay at the mo - the only ones that would do won't deliver and are too far away.

I think my best option is the reclamation yard first followed by a local (ish) saw mill / timber merchants if no joy...

Thanks for all the good advice!

 

What about using cut down hazel hurdles? They were very well received at my Chelsea garden this year. You can get hurdles from www.brandonthatchers.co.uk

 

Yes they look lovely! But I'm a total beginner at this and reckon I can just about deal with something as simple as a plank!

 

It depends on how deep/wide you want your beds to be, but whilst scaffold boards would be ideal, it is possible to make raised beds out of nothing more than PSE softwood.

When my Father (not just a keen - more a 'compulsive' gardener), became a wheelchair user, I made him several raised beds. Using 18 x 144mm x 2.4m PSE softwood, the beds were 2.4m long and 4 'planks' (about 2') high, although to make them wheelchair-user friendly, only about 2' wide. I used 75 x 75mm PSE for the corners and, the same at ⅓ and ⅔ intervals along the 2.4m length, for rigidity. They were given two coats of preservative inside and out before assembly and, just in case the preservative may have contained something any plants didn't like, I put some black polythene around the inside. When 12 years later, (after my parents died), I sold their house, the raised beds still showed no signs of rot.

My only 'girlie' moment in all this was building the beds on the lawn and then having to get Mr. F'smum to help me move them