A cold frame is one of the old standby garden tools. It’s great for extending your garden season, but it’s not just for use in colder climates. It can help you get those seedlings in before the hot weather hits even in the South.

A cold frame is simply a raised bed vegetable garden that has a covering over it. Its primary use is to put seedlings outside before they may be ready to go, especially tender crops that absolutely can’t take a freeze, like tomatoes and peppers. It encourages “hardening off” of seedlings, which gradually acclimates the plants to the temperature swings that nature has in store for it.

A raised garden bed kit is a good way to simplify the job of building a raised bed garden. While you can build a raised garden from your own lumber like cedar, or arranging concrete blocks, a kit gives a compromise of cost and simplicity of assembly that will get you an attractive garden that will typically last for years.

There are a wide range of raised garden kits. You can start with your own lumber, and just buy the raised bed corner brackets. Joining the corners is the most difficult part of building a bed, and the brackets can make this much easier. This is especially true when you are building a bed that is taller than a single board depth. Another bed design where the brackets are a real time saver is for an irregular shaped bed like a hexagon raised bed.

Raised garden beds are a great way to add a garden to many yards. Raised beds can give more crops in less area, and are better for those who can’t or don’t want to do the bending and stooping that often comes with traditional gardening. There are many types of ways to build a raised garden, from building one yourself with scrap lumber to buying an attractive cedar raised garden kit. But one of the most popular ways to make a raised garden is to use a vinyl raised bed kit. These plastic garden kits offer a great compromise between the cost of the high end wooden beds to the sometimes less than aesthetic appeal of the scrap lumber approach.

Without a doubt, the most popular type of raised bed garden is the cedar raised garden. Cedar is a popular wood species to use in the garden because it naturally resists rot and insect infestation, not to mention that’s it’s an attractive wood. Often showcasing it’s knotty character, it adds some beauty to the raised garden bed, and cedar can last for decades if properly cared for.

Lasagna gardening is does not have anything to do with pasta, unless you include the gardening of the tomatoes for your sauce. Lasagna gardening is a technique for raised bed garden construction, where the soil is built up in layers, a la lasagna.

Originally conceived by Patricia Lanza lasagna gardening and described in her book “Lasagna Gardening” is an organic gardening method which eliminates the traditional digging and tilling normally associated with vegetable gardening.

One of the most inexpensive ways to build a raised bed is of course to build your own raised bed. We discuss some techniques for this in the article on raised garden bed construction.

But if you are using lumber to make your raised garden beds, the most difficult thing about the construction is securing the corners. With a lot of moist soil in place, these joints need to be securely fastened. The ideal way to do this is with corner brackets. These provide not only a very strong corner joint, but give some esthetic appeal to the project as well. And if you are looking at making a bed deeper than 12 inches, you will also need to address connecting 2 pieces of lumber together as well.

Vertical gardening in its simplest form is the idea of taking vegetables that in their natural state may tend to sprawl over the ground, and providing a support structure to allow them to grow vertically. Critical to this is often the support of the ripening fruit or vegetable.

Not to be overlooked are ornamental vining plants like clematis, honeysuckle, Virginia creeper, or ivies.

Advantages of vertical gardens:

Roof gardens present an interesting choice for many urban gardeners, but certainly are not a new idea.

One of the earliest roof gardens were the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, which are thought to date back to 600 BC and the time of Nebuchadnezzar II. Famous as one of the Seven Wonders of the World, there were also gardens at Neneveh about that same time.

With garden space at a premium in urban settings, roof gardens are sometimes the only practical solution, especially in a high rise urban building. To make the best use of that space, often it is necessary to resort to some non traditional gardening techniques like container gardens, raised beds, or hydroponics. The lighter weight of hydroponic systems often makes them more attractive for use in roof gardens. Some forms of vertical gardening, which encourages plants to climb along trellises or walls is attractive for use on roofs as well.

Square Foot Gardening is a concept that has been around for years. Square foot gardens are a type of intensive gardens that were popularized by Mel Bartholemew in his book All New Square Foot Gardening. Based on the concept that the wide rows in conventional home gardening are a waste of resources, including time, work, water and space, Mel suggests that more quality vegetables can be grown in less space with less effort. Originally a variant of the wide bed approach to vegetable gardening, square foot gardening is a more structured approach, including suggestions for mixing the soil and the approach to watering.

Here’s a video from Osmocote featuring Jennifer Bartley on the history and uses for raised bed gardening.

Of course, first, you need to decide on a location. See our article on planning a raised garden bed to guide you in choosing a good location.

Lay out the Perimeter

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.

Raised bed gardening is popular in many parts of the country. Let’s take a look at the advantages of gardening in raised beds.

Appearance: Gardens can at times take on an ungainly look. With their clearly defined beds and pathways, your garden can take on a much more manicured and tidy look. There’s a reason there are raised beds at so many botanical gardens.