How do you make a raised veg bed

Nice work Oktarine, Im still at the design stage i still have all that hard work you have put in to come.

 

hi everyone

this thread has been interesting reading, my neighbour and I have aquired a plot from the local council and one of the things we have decided was to divide it into beds. We are using old pallets, the boards arnt very thick and are only about 4ft long, but they are free and I have plenty of them, do you think these will be ok as a starter?

 

Hi Percy T.

It depends on the wood used for the pallets, I thought about using the same stuff, The pallets i looked at seemed to be made from soft wood and they appeared to hold the water so they may rot over time. Im new to this myself and i maybe wrong. All the best with your plot mate.

 

cheers Mark

I got the other half to use pallet wood about 7 years ago to fence of an area just outside my back door to make a bin shed and the wood still seems fine.

i'm a bit of a tight wad!

 

I suspect that one of the potential advantages of old pallats is that they are easy to obtain and if they do rot in 6 or 7 years they are just as easy to replace and you would be very unlucky for them all to rot at the same time.
ttfn

 

HI oldwinegum, and all you experts.
Great looking beds.
Gives me ideas to, as I am going to do a simular thing.

 

Hi all,
I'm about to embark on my second attempt at creating a veg plot. (I gave up on the first one due to really really heavy clay soil). I've moved house now though and I've decided to use raised beds this time (the tips in this thread have been v interesting).

My question is what do I fill them with once they're built? We have lovely fine grainy soil (no clay) so having dug up the grass turned over the soil etc. do I just top them up with top-soil, or do I get manure as well, or perhaps a different type of fertiliser? I seem to recall that you shouldn't use manure if you plan to grow root veg - is that true?

 

That is right, if you want to grow root veg, you are best filling with topsoil and compost mix, I used the soil out of last years growbags as I had around ten of them.

My raised beds are made out of softwood too. I have used timber care on the outside to help make them last a couple more years and I lined them on the inside with old compost bags (cut open length ways to make them go further).

I have 10 raised beds now made like this. I have half filled them with manure and then topped them up with topsoil (except the ones I want to grow my carrots and parsnips in).

I find using raised beds a much easier way to garden, weed and rotate crops.

Happy gardening.

 

I TOTALY AGREE LOOKING GOOD.
It has shown me how to do my raised beds.

great bunch of Guys on this forum.

 

You can use manure but not fresh. If you get some leave it on your compost for a year (great for placing a cold frame on to create a hot bed) then dig it into your soil.

 

Sorry, I should have added that it was well-rotted manure, not fresh.

 

Started diging the garden last weekend. Went a little OTT to be fair, I now have three corner beds and two veg plots of 1m x1.5m, Go the wife to give the idea/design the once over before diging. It was cold so she never really came out side the back door so i don't really think she knows what i've done . Oh well im sure she won't mind to much a. Had snow and frost in berkshire this week so the soil should benifit from that so as a complete novice to this hobby i must say i have been bitten by the bug and can't wait to get out there and do some more! and to a large degree its thanks to all you helpful members GC for which i say a big THANK YOU

 

To Mark!!
Keep taking the tablets,
ttfn

 

Im will be sowing them soon mate....

 

Hi All,


I have been following your posts and I am wanting to make my own raised beds as I have a good area of clay on which to put them. Does anyone know of somewhere to get some boards in SE London as I cannot seem to find anywhere with wide enough boards?

Thanks