Topic: Wood for Raised Beds?

[GardnerJ]

Hi folks
can anyone advise me as to where you get the wood to make rasied beds form? what do i use? is it as easy as B & Q?
Answers on a post card!
Jemma  ;)

[ALAN HOWELL]

Hi Jemma,you could try a builders re-claimed timber/building materials yard,It's possible you may find some already weatherpfoofed.Your "Yellow Pages " is the way to go. :)...Alan

[derbex]

I got mine from Jewsons.

Jeremy

[GardnerJ]

thanks guys! i will be looking in the yellow pages tomorrow, and jewsons what is that?
 jem x

[derbex]

I thought they were everywhere, a builder merchant, I suppose Travis Perkins would be another to try.

Otherwise whatever you can scrounge -and you have to decide how much you're worried about the preservative- I decided I wasn't.

Jeremy.

[Doris_Pinks]

You can try calling scaffolders and see if they have any old/split scaffolding boards  that need removing!

[Mimi]

Thats what I did Doris.  Condemed boards were being sold off for 25p/foot.  I thought that this was a reasonable price.  I also bought two 7ft scaffolding poles to use as supports for my runner beans for £3 each.  Not too bad considering that they will last forever.

[Plottie]

Hi Jemma
Don't automatically think you'll have to buy what you need.I've recently been searching for wood to use for edging my new beds and have been 'skip scouring' for the last few weeks! Have managed to get hold of enough to edge 10 beds so am v pleased with myself! Best find were 20 floor joist removed during the construction of an extension. The builders were glad to see them go as it freed up more space in the skip so we were all happy!
Only problem is that this way you have to transport the stuff yourself...then cut it to size etc... :P
Good luck ...Plottie :)

[GardnerJ]

wow i am not sure i will have as much luck! i will try to see what i can find, in the yellow pages i have found railway sleepers for £15 each for 8ft long? but that is about £180 if i was to make 3 raised beds out of it! don't want to spend that much!

[Roy Bham UK]

I would have thought a reclaim timber yard as already mentioned would be your cheapest bet. I was lucky enough to grab some used fencing planks 4 inch wide and very long, from my daughter who replaced her fence, I'm screwing these to wooden stakes to make an 8 inch high bed and hope that will surfice. ::)

Roy ;D

[derbex]

I'm not sure about sleepers -aren't they soaked in tar, creosote or somesuch?

BTW Mr. Flowerdew recommends no edging on raised beds -more a sort of inverted U shape.

Jeremy

[rdak]

I've been looking for months for scrap timber to use. Scaffolding boards are ideal- but are very hard to come by now, since there have been cases of old boards being sold on within the industry and the resulting Health & Safety implications. I'm not going to use gravel boards due to concerns about them being pressure-treated (which has been proved to leach out--but anyone who has them already, please don't freak out--all risk is relative after all).

Therefore I am planning on having raised beds without sides- just raise the soil and slope the sides. This actually has the advantage of not harbouring slugs and helping even more with warming the soil, although does make it more difficult keeping the beds tidy and psychologically I think it would help having clearly defined beds, for purposes of weeding etc! Until a load of free, safe wood comes my way, I'll be doing without.

[Pixie]

Try a building site - the ones locally thought it very novel that I wanted the wood for my lottie and have even offered to drop it of for me!

[campanula]

wood used for outside use must be tanalised (treated) or it will rot. Avoid builder's merchants and try to contact a fencing company who make their own. Ask for gravel boards - these are 150cmx25cm and usually around 3m in length. we made 13 raised beds, 3mx1.5m for £120 including the stakes (although this included some hard haggling). Don't go to a reclaim place - they are frequently more expensive than new timber and definately do not go to B&Q or Homebase unless you want to be robbed. In Cambridgeshire, our nearest fencing supplies is Universal but look in yellow pages. Sleepers are often treated with creosote although you can get ones that are untreated but they are way too expensive. Another possibility is to try a sawmill. They sell lengths of timber with bark on - the outside of tree trunks, often really cheap. They will not last forever but are worth a punt.
Finally, i agree raised beds are great but, after we built ours, we were faced with the problem of filling them. We actually had to import 4 tonnes of topsoil to join the loads of horse we blagged from a local livery. We could have used twice that amount! And the level sinks!
good luck, suzy

[gilgamesh]

At work we have loads of pallets, of non-standard sizes. The hen run door, "luxury living for lagomorphs", chicks run etc. are all the recipients of this, and I'm ging to use it for a new compost bin, but it would be a source of timber for edging - I have made "Ranch railings" from it, with slanting cuts in the side to side bracing - drives into the ground a treat. It won't last, of course, but it's so attractively priced I don't worry too much about that, give it a coat of limewash and use it. Work are happy to be rid of it - they'd have to pay to get riid, and it has to go for recycling. Standard pallets are saleable, ours, which are built to fit a particuar item, cost more to ship back to Spain (the original source) than it is worth spending.

[Mimi]

mimi's other half speaking. We just marked out the layout for the beds and paths using tape measure, string, stakes and aerosol yellow paint. Then, cos of the hardness of the soil, got a mini digger and chap in. Paid him £100 for the day. He dug everything over to 18" depth then dug the paths out, putting spoil onto where beds would be. Total time 1hr 40mins. Still worth it to us. He could have dug everybody elses (5) in the day no probs, but there you go.Not everybody talks to us now but this is meant to be fun not the bridge over the river quai. The we made up old scaffolding boards into rectangles 5'x whatever using 2"x2" stakes and 3" screws to join the corners together.Then using string for levels, we laid the frame around the piles of soil then mimi riddled the soil thru Eric's patent bulk riddler (i dont dig) ,the soil is just enough but does settle over time, however soil needed improving with organic stuff you are all familiar with which brought the levels back up again. Some of the stones removed were used to surface the paths the remainder were used to start building "The Great Wall Of Wales". sorted, looks neat, Does waste a bit of ground but wth. Boards will outlive me, treated or not. Stakes don't go into the ground, so no probs there. Only prob so far is beds are maybe a bit too well drained. mimi's going to give me hell when she find out i've been on her site, so yahboo sucks!!!!
jerry ;)

[gilgamesh]

Amend last two words to Yahoo sucks & I'm with you all the way :-)

[carrot-cruncher]

Try scrounging......it's amazing what you can come up with.

Since I obtained my plot last year I've become a champion scrounger!!!!    I find I can't now pass a skip without having a nose in.   I've also started visiting my local tip.   For my bed edging I've been using old internal doors then just attacked them with my jigsaw.   Any boards that needed joining were fixed together using a trellis out of my garden that was very carefully taken apart.

[mitzzy]

 Just read in a book for Organic gardening not to use anything round raised beds .

It doesn't explain how your raised beds stay raised !

 ???

Mags

[derbex]

Mitzy, I think they end sort of humped rather than rectangular, so they have sloping sides. Beyond that you probably keep raking them back every so often.

Jeremy