Planning a Raised Garden Bed

The growing conditions for your vegetable or flower garden can be improved greatly with a raised bed garden. A raised bed garden allows the soil to be mixed to ideal conditions, and the irrigation and watering patterns can be optimized as well. In addition, grass and tree roots can be significantly reduced, making for almost ideal growing conditions.

Let’s look at the steps for planning a raised bed garden.

Choose your site

Once you have a good idea of what you want to plant in your garden, you can make the best choice for the site. Most vegetables want a lot of sunlight, and early morning sun is ideal to avoid the heat of the day.

If you are trying to grow shade loving ornamentals, then a site without full sun may work best. In almost all cases an open site with free air movement will minimize the damage from frost or fungal disease.

Drainage considerations

One key advantage to a raised bed is the ability to avoid having waterlogged plant root systems. Make sure that you keep the bed in a location that can drain well so that it will also limit the potential for disease. A soil moisture with a percentage of organic material will also improve the drainage. If the native soils are heavy clay or conversely sandy soil, be sure to adjust the mixture to keep the drainage of the bed working well. This may call for using perlite or some other soil amendment. Avoid situating the bed in a low or soggy area. If that can’t be avoided then you may consider putting in a French drain or other tile system to improve the drainage in the area. Alternatively you can design a deeper bed to manage a very wet area.

Design of the bed walls

This is the biggest factor in the aesthetics of the design. You will certainly want the bed to fit into yard. Choices to consider:

Formal or informal look

Materials: Cinder blocks, brick wall, cedar wood, landscape timbers or metal edging are all popular choices.

Shape: Rectangular ordered look or a more natural shape. This will vary based on where in the landscape you are putting it. ( A front of the house landscape will tend to have a more formal look). A simple berm type bed with no walls at all is another option, where the bed is simply mounded up soil.
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Height and material of the bed wall

Bed heights can vary from 8 to 18 inches, depending on the application. Vegetables, especially root crops, will need more depth, as will poorly drained areas. The height will determine to some degree the choice of materials, but more important is the aesthetic appeal of the wall material. The bed wall material will determine that to the greatest degree. The materials that can be used are varied. Railroad ties, landscape timbers, metal edging, concrete bricks, masonry, mortared brick or stone are some of the popular choices. One easy approach is to use wood with commercial raised bed corner brackets and extensions to build it to a height you want.

Metal edging can be used for almost any shape, is relatively easy to install, but can eventually rust, and presents a less natural look. There are some health concerns about railroad ties and landscape timbers leaching creosote or other preservatives intot the soil, but there are other EPA studies indicating that the contaminate levels from aged ties may be quite low. If this concerns you consider lining the bed with some protective covering like polyethylene. Stone is very attractive, but can be fairly expensive, and the most work to install.

Irrigating the raised bed

When you are planning your bed your should plan the irrigation system as well. If you plan to use a portable sprinkler or hand held hose then this is not an issue, but consider the amount of work that represents, as well as the ability to leave the bed unattended for some time. Some form of automated sprinkler system will certainly cut down on the manual labor to involved with the raised bed.

Consider if the plants and vegetables in the garden will be best watered with a conventional spray head, or if this is a good time to start with a drip system or soaker hoses. These can cut down on water usage will reducing the risk of disease induced by wet foliage on the plants.

Whichever system you choose, the time to install it is right before or during the tine you add soil to the bed. And of course, installing a feed line from across the yard will be simpler before you have finished installing the walls of the raised bed.

If you plan for these key points, you will be happier with the overall design of your raised garden bed. You can find more on our tips on raised garden bed construction