Topic: Raised Beds - Wood, Brick or Metal?

[cambourne7]

Hi All,

Well i am contemplating my raised bed construction last time i used wood which was ok. But i am looking at getting someone in to build a brick BBQ for hubby and wondered about using cinderblock to make beds http://www.listotic.com/creative-garden-container-ideas/17/or wood with metal sheeting (might cut down slugs) http://www.projectalicia.com/2013/04/ww-urban-gardening.html#.VM_cQUJN7DG.

Anyone got an opinion.

Its for a garden so needs to look nice as well as functional.

Found a site that does the metal in yummy colours ! http://www.steelroofsheets.co.uk/colour-charts/
Cam

[lottie lou]

Can't find the link but Tee Gee once suggested using gravel boards in slotted posts.  Then if you need it, you could raise it higher.  It would be a lot cheaper than brick and they look okay.

[cambourne7]

the posts appear to be £20 each might get pricy

[ancellsfarmer]

Would not use corrugated steel, whatever the colour, its a nasty accident waiting to happen. How high do you wish to raise? Timber gravel boards, pressure treated jn 200mm height at the front, running away to nothing at the back, nailed to 450mm  50x50 posts at 900mm centres, driven in will do. Personally would creosote, disregarding all doom mongers. Reclaimed pallet, similarly treated is the economy option. There are extruded plastic systems for those with a loose budget, or needing a "neat" solution.
See Harrodhorticultural linkaboard

[sparrow]

I use decking and paint it. It takes a little longer to set up because of waiting for paint to dry, but it does look nice and neat.

[Tee Gee]

How do you define a "Raised bed"?

Personally anything under 12" is not a raised bed to me, and to surround any thing below this height in timber is an unecessary expense!

I prefer to make my beds deeper.

On my new plot I dug my beds and this initially raised the soil level 3"-4" that is: the paths are lower by this amount.

This suited me for the simple reason we get loads of shredded timber  delivered to the site so I filled my paths for free, so now my beds are deeper.

OK the soil settles again as it compacts meaning the beds are a little lower than the path surface so I fill this with mulch.

Again we are lucky as we have worked a deal with a local riding school who is happy to deliver the stable bedding FOC , otherwise the council would charge him if he were to take it to a landfill site.


Another of the plot holders uses the " no dig " method so he is truly happy with this arrangement, but I like to dig as it lets air into the soil but basically I do the same as the no dig colleague in terms of enriching my soil As I add a surface layer of organic materials but I also let  air into mine.

I am pleased to say that when we harvest that my stuff is generally better than his, but that might be down to the varieties he grows and the attention he gives them.

I look forward to all your definitions of a "Raised bed"


Ps re the slotted concrete posts you can saw long post with a masonry saw and get two or three posts out of a long post e.g a 6 ft post will give you three 2 ft posts ( 1 ft above ground the other foot below)

This would be suitable for one gravel board or if you cut the post in half (2 x3ft) you will get enough support for two gravel boards.

[naff]

I'm in agreement with Ancellsfarmer. Use timber (I use decking boards) treat it with creosote if you know a "commercial" user who will supply you or open a trade account in your name at your local builders merchant( pay cash ) or use "Creocote" yearly digging back to expose the inner surface to enable treatment. This has worked for me over the last 15 years. I raise the height when I can afford it and use cheap bought in/my own compost/mushroom compost to fill to height. My beds were all dug out to 1 spade below subsoil on an 8 x 4 feet basis/sieved/lined with free geotextile from work/compost added with the soil on refill. It's a lot of work BUT it pays of, I was lucky enough to get around 450mm depth from original ground level +150mm nominal above ground level from 1 decking board. I'm now 2 boards above general ground level and the moles have dug through the geotextile,but if you keep putting your own compost in you will reap the rewrds. Google "Bristol + creosote" for accurate info on creosote from the number 1 eco uni in the uk.
Nathan

Posted with help from Mr James Beam and his partner (without the bit that used to make it worth drinking) God I really wish I was young enough  for dope to be exiting still.

[lottie lou]

I agree with Tee Gee on this.  Gravel boards are 6 ft long x 1 ft high.  If you have your raised beds parallel with each other, you could put something across the two (between the paths) to sit on.  Cost wise, brick, although would look very nice would cost a fortune.  One of my neighbours has used that white upvc cladding, the long strips usually used for cloaking fascias which looks very nice and doesn't need maintenance.

[Paulines7]

We used breezeblocks in our garden for walls around the greenhouse and have also made a couple of square beds for protecting plants that are still in their pots.  Once I have planted these, I am thinking of filling the area with compost and using it to grow courgettes so it will become a raised bed.  Below is a link to the blocks we used.  They are easy to cut with a saw.

http://www.wickes.co.uk/Wickes-Aerated-Block-3-6-N-100mm/p/213632

[kGarden]

Personally would creosote, disregarding all doom mongers

I read somewhere that Creosote was banned in EU as being carcinogenic, but since then extensive further research has been done, particularly of people who worked in the industry and were heavily exposed to it, and the research found no statistically discernible increase in cancers ...

How do you define a "Raised bed"?

Personally anything under 12" is not a raised bed to me, and to surround any thing below this height in timber is an unecessary expense!

Mine are less than that :)

I started off with "lazy raised beds", a spit-depth of soil dug out of the paths and mounded on the beds inbetween.  It provided enough "raise" (along with compost and manure which raised it some more) to significantly improve the drainage of my heavy clay.

I got a bit fed up with the edges of the beds collapsing onto the paths, which meant I had to re-make the edges every second year, or so, and it looked a bit messy (on a scale of on-to-ten I'm not very fussed about such things, but for anyone who is its likely to be at the "significant" end of the scale!), plus the weeds from the paths had no demarcation line and spread back into the beds, and lastly planting right up to the edge of the beds, on the sloping shoulders, was not particularly easy.

Cheap though, as in "free" :)

So eventually I lined the beds with boards, and on the inside I put some damp-proof-membrane so that boards are not directly in contact with the damp soil, which will hopefully make them last longer.


Before


After (well ... "during" :) )

I've seen some boards made from recycled plastic which are, presumably, very durable.  I thought they were dear, but if I have to replace the timber on mine often / at all I'll wish I'd done first-cost = best-cost :)

Re bricks, blocks and sleepers.  They can be great to sit on, around a bed, but if that is not an important issue I think they take up too much "width".

My beds are 4' wide. If I put a 6" surround (e.g. blocks / sleepers) around then that would add a foot to the width of each bed. That's 25% of the space! so every 4 beds I would lose the whole width of a 5th bed.  personally, I'd prefer to have the extra growing space.

[ancellsfarmer]

CREOSOTE
Further to your response, it was thought "desirable" to restrict the sale of creosote for domestic marketing  but not banned for use. While remaining "acceptable" for use by "professional" applicators.(Who come under the COSHH regulations) The discrimination to be effected by permitting only 25 litre packaging(obviously a lot- must be "professional"! I think you will find it  readily available to any in overalls , at farm suppliers, paint merchants, builders merchants, fencing etc. Please read the instructions for use, personal safety, prevention of spillages and  avoidance to contamination to aquatic and insect life. And cats!

Kgarden.
I like your "headstones" If these were "footstones" as well, line wires would support polythene, fleece or debris netting, giving very versatile growing protection to all manner of crops

[BarriedaleNick]

I use scaffold boards as I can get them fairly cheap from a nearby firm.  They will deliver a load of damaged ones for a few quid and they last quite well with some garden friendly preservative.  Whether you call them raised beds or something else doesn't really concern me as they do me just fine.  I tend to the unorganised and having the beds marked out like this helps me keep to the paths and concentrate my energies on getting the most nutrients into where I want them..

I have just redone all mine for this year as a neighbour had lots of wood going spare and I am busy back filling them.  They do take so much more material than you might think so It may take a while but it is coming along nicely - hops and grain, stable manure, City farm waste, rabbit hutch sweepings - all added to the "soil"

[cambourne7]

Hi

Looking for them to be about 3ft high thanks everyone lots to digest :)

Cam

[kGarden]

I like your "headstones" If these were "footstones" as well, line wires would support polythene, fleece or debris netting, giving very versatile growing protection to all manner of crops

Thanks :)

The headstones aren't all that tall, I was planning to put a laminated list of the crops in the bed on them - so that weekend guest who offer to go-pick-something-for-lunch pick the right thing ... hopefully!!

I use water-pipe hoops to support scaffolders debris netting (to keep cabbage white butterfly off etc.) and the like. I put some short pieces of cane into the ground, and then push the pipe on top.

Looking for them to be about 3ft high thanks everyone lots to digest :)

3' high raised beds need a LOT of soil.  Personally I would only advise tall raised beds like that for folk with a bad back or disability.  For a 4' wide bed, 3' tall, you'll need a builder's bag of soil (1 cu.m. / 1 tonne) for every 3' run of the bed's length;  A builder's bag of soil is about £50-£70, and quite a lot of hard work barrowing it to a raised bed, unless you have some machinery on site.

Deep raised beds like that will dry out more rapidly in Summer. Not an insurmountable problem of course, but might be worth installing some irrigation rather than relying on watering by hand.

[Silverleaf]

I have two raised beds, 6m x 1.2m (20' x 4') and about 30cm (12") high. When we first built them I bought 3 tons of topsoil very cheaply from a local builders merchant - it was cheap because it was very sandy and not very fertile, but I thought it would be just the thing to improve the drainage of my heavy clay. I added bags and bags of compost over the top.

I was shocked at how little it affected the height of the beds when the soil looks like loads in those 1 ton bags.

And I dread to think how much I've spent on compost over the years building it up! But really, it needed to be done. Digging and growing in my soil is impossible, it's either so sticky and wet you can't break it up at all, or it's baked hard, cracked and dry and impossible to dig. Weeds like couch grass and creeping buttercups and daisies and dandelions do fine, but most vegetables give up on trying to get their roots to break through it.

My neighbour tells me that the original owner of the house grew vegetables in the garden. I have no idea how he did it. The only evidence is the patch of sickly rhubarb struggling away, which I'm trying to doctor by smothering it in manure.

[lottie lou]

That high you would need something pretty robust to contain all the soil.

[Tee Gee]

I have found this picture of how I have prepared my allotment beds;



Although you can't see it, the beds are quite deep so much so when I am digging I can actually sink my full spade blade  into the soil without using my foot to help it down. ( although it is much easier still if I use my foot)

[Robert_Brenchley]

My beds are made with old scaffolding boards, and are 4m by just over 1m by about a foot high. I fill them with whatever organic material is available; hedge cuttings, compst, rotten wood, autumn leaves, leafmould, grass cuttings. Then I top them up any time theyre empty. The only cost has been wood preservative and backache.

[cambourne7]

I though 3ft would be a good height to avoid 2 much bending down.

I can get soil delivered by the skip load for the cost of the skip under £100 for a large skip delivered.

Soil will be delivered outside the house near back door and wheelbarrowed into the beds (not putting back end in for now to allow the barrows to be wheeled into the beds). Planning a BBQ and going to see if I can get help. Once the beds are filled I expect them to drop at this point I will buy some topsoil and have this delivered in 1 ton bag and top off the beds.

The beds will have a thickness of weed membrane on the bottom (we have bindweed) and a thick layer of shredded paper (job for kids) once the soil is added the kids will also throw in straw, perlight, spent hops and vermiculite to aid texture and aid with drainage for this much soil I though it would be useful.

Cam

[lottie lou]

Alternatively Cam, you could get yourself a stool - a low one and just sit at the side of the bed to do your plantings etc.  I have one of those fishing stools for sitting in the greenhouse or on the lottie a milk crate with a plank of wood fixed on the bottom which is more than adequate.  This would mean that you wouldn't have to raise your beds so high.