10 Common Raised Bed Garden Mistakes 

If I kneel on the ground I better have a back up plan as to how I’m going to be able to get up! 🌷💚🙃

Regarding the amount of space BETWEEN the beds: I have always based it off of the widest wheelbarrow (or gorilla cart) that I’m using. I look at the widest part of that wheelbarrow (usually the handles) and add 6-8 inches. This ensures you’re not scraping/damaging your plants as you move down the aisles with your wheelbarrow.

No comment. I'm just feeding the algorithm monster and tapping the thumbs 👍 button.

Finally someone explained the soil mixture correctly.

We are experimenting with raised beds here in Costa Rica, not because the soil isn't nutrient rich and fertile, but because of the need to control moisture levels, which varies to the extreme between our two seasons--rainy season and dry season. We're playing around with hugelkultur techniques but modified; for example, beds with bottom fill of madera negra limbs offer great drainage for the wet months, while beds with bottom fill of banana "tree" stems are great for retaining moisture in the dry months. We're also channeling ancient Mayan gardeners by using the gloopy muck from the bottom of swampy areas to mix with compost for a really nutrient-dense middle layer for our hugelkulturs. Over time, we'll know more about whether these strategies work, but for now it is certainly fun to experiment!

I built one of these beds three years following your video and I am probably the least handy person I know. I've gotten so many tomatoes using the bed you designed and I can't wait to fill it with tomatoes again this year. Appreciate all the work you do Brian!

FLUSH THE DRIP SYSTEM! I am just now bringing my drip system online and found one controller that provided less water than I thought it should. I opened the end of one channel and it barely had any water because the input to the controller was plugged with algae. I disconnected the feed line and flushed out a lot of algae and now it works well. I then flushed out all lines to and from each controller/channel. Added this chore to the todo list!

You’re by far my favorite YT gardener. Love all the solid info shared calmly with your pleasant voice. Thank you for all you put into each gardening lesson!

I've gotten turned on to planter blocks. They are bricks with a 2 inch slot on each side so you can just slide in a 2x6 to make the walls of your raised beds. I like them because they are more modular and because I rent my home if I move i can disassemble them and take them with me.

The view from your property is absolutely stunning!

What a view! It’s beautiful. What a blessing to have a property to garden and live with such a beautiful view. So happy for you!

I used the raised-bed corner bricks from Home Depot: the brick sides have slots for 2x6s and can be anchored with a bit of rebar. I stacked 2 for my 2x12 boards. Easy!

Hey Brian! My husband built three 8x4 elevated raised beds. A game changer for the more mature gardeners 😊 Also Gardeners Supply has something made out of juniper oil that is safe for organic gardeners. This solution helps protect wood from moisture on the inside of the bed.

I just put in a tall raised bed using logs and branches. I was shocked that it dropped by a foot over my zone 5 winter. Crazy 😮

Your hills remind me of the geography near Temecula. My grandma was born on the Ludy Ranch in 1895, and each time we would drive down rt. 395 to go to Oceanside, she would reminisce about her early childhood memories.

Omg everyone is a critic! Thank you for the information and taking the time to post this.

You have clearly been busting hiney on your dream of your different garden areas! Looking fantabulous!

LOL! I'm glad you told us what you were using for mulch. I kept looking at it, thinking 'is that sand?'! 😂👍

Im in Northern Colorado and eventually ripped out my numerous 4’ x 10’ x 8” beds in favor of in ground beds and haven’t regretted it for even a second. I recognize as valid only about 3 of the typically claimed benefits of wood/concrete/etc. raised beds and as I near my 70th birthday I firmly believe the incremental bending, kneeling, etc. is a giant benefit that will help keep me spry until it’s my turn to become part of the compost heap.

I’m so impressed with the amount of work and care you have put into your garden area as well as your entire property! Thanks for sharing this with us. It gives me hope that I can make something out of the space we have been given! Great job and fabulous channel!!🙏🤗

Perfect tutorial! You got right to the point and explained everything so well....and you answered any questions I had about 2 seconds after they popped into my brain. Bravo!

First time viewer here! I really appreciate your video! It was informative without being too long or boring! I really took away some great bits of knowledge. Thank you!

You have a beautiful setting. Thanks for sharing this video. My raised bed garden is near my patio and easy to get to. It is also my happy place 😊

I’m Glad i Found your Channel Today! Thank You for sharing your knowledge and mentioning the word disabilities!! Gardening reaches across many diverse communities!! Such a Beautiful Property You Have. Happy Gardening Everyone🤗🤗🤗

In my husband's field, you cannot talk about projects they worked on. When interviewing for a new job, since he couldn't talk specifics about what he did at his job, he used building a raised bed as an example 😂. Got mult job offers, so it worked. We watched Brian's videos at old house as a guide.

Great video Brian, i used 100 liter (26 gal) food-safe plastic barrels (cut in half) and old baths.

I am using for years a trellis made of the wire mesh from HD - 6” net, 8’x4’. ( used for concrete slabs). It looks like a cattle fence, but smaller. I connect two on upper end - as A. They are perfect for beans, cucumbers, peas , Malabar spinach… They work really well for many years.

2 things, I built my raised beds with redwood 2x6 over 17 years ago and they are still in great shape. Secondly, I use a local tree service for trimming in the winter and they always bring me shredded wood when I ask; they know I only need a couple wheelbarrows full so they only drop off that amount. Good to get to know a tree trimmer or arborist for mulch for free!!

This was so very informative. So many things I must do. Not sure how to set up a leaching water system but have sprinklers that haven’t hurt me in the past. Have a bunch of wood ships that I will distribute to my garden.

That was a great refresher, I was about to make some mistakes! Thanks!

Beautiful property! I'm tackling raised beds this year and this video is perfect!! Thanks so much Brian!

that opening shot it just beautiful, you build a paradise

Thanks for the ‘101’ lesson for raised bed gardening. Hadn’t really considered the need for winter mulching but will plant cover mulch from now on.

I do container gardening but these are also great tips for my type of gardening - thanks!

For those in the northern climes who may want to use hoop houses over their raised beds for winter, the 4 foot width can be a little cumbersome to reach the "back" when the hoop house is installed.

You are correct for certified organic not to use pressure treated, but a study in 2014 did show that root veggies do not uptake the copper. I also prefer not to use pressure treated.

Your videos are awesome. Thank you : ) I love you're all organic.

Great video. Thanks for the reminder to amend the soil in spring. I was thinking of doing it right before planting in the summer but I'll get it done soon now.

My husband & I JUST finished building my DREAM raised bed garden, I have wanted for over10 years! When I forst started gardening people talked like clay soil wasnt good enough to grow veggies in, & that you needed to have raised beds filled with really good spil to have success. But I learned that clay soil actually has a lot of nutrients usially. But it is a pain to plant in... but just laying down a few inches of loose compost before planting solves that problem. It makes it east to plant your seedlings into the loose compost, & as they for they can get their roots into the clay soil no problem. So since i couldn't afford to build my dream raised bed garden (which is 12 total beds, with mulched paths & a border of some kind)- which is really just for aestetic purposes- weve been just building & filling a couple beds each year for the last 3 years. But this fall were finishing the rest of the entite project! Laying down landscapefabric & Mulch in the paths, etc. 👏

We made our new garden out of cinder blocks, double stacked. It took a lot more dirt, of course, but it has really paid off since I am somewhat disabled. The blocks are laid with the holes up, and are perfect for growing something small like radishes or lettuces.

If you are thinking about raising plants in horse troughs, see if you can find a place that sells seconds. They usually are leaky which is cool since you need to drill holes in them anyway, and they are substantially cheaper!

Great info. Measuring my calf for the path was something that was new to me. Thanks.

Hi Brian, I am new to your channel and live in south australia! We are building our food garden and wanting to make raised garden beds for a few different reasons but generally for ease of access and so that our dog does not run through our plants! I really like your easy garden beds and the information you have given about things to watch out for is so valuable when starting out. We have a lot of sugar can mulch here because Queensland is a huge cane producing state BUT I had not thought about chemicals used on the cane??? will need to do some research on that one. anyway, thanks so much for taking time to share your knowledge and ideas with us!!! cheers, Rosie from Down Under

I love that you mentioned the Kellogg Raised Bed soil. I've tried them all and the Kellogg RB Soil has so many nutrients in it that is like putting your plants on steroids. Example; my raised bed plants were all planted April 14th in a 50/50 loam compost mix with Black Cow Manure worked into the top 6 inches. My 5 gal buckets I filled with Kellogg RBS and planted my extra seedlings in those on June 21. Here it is July 14 and my plants in containers are already bigger than the ones in my RB. I wouldn't believe it if someone told me this but seeing is believing. I'm a DAV full of rods pins and screws and had a friend build my RB's 4'x8'x32" high because I can't bend. In the bottom of each RB I put 4-5" of non printed corrugated cardboard followed by 6" logs on top of that, branches on top of that follwed by 4-5" of mulched leaves and grass mixed, and then topped with a 50/50 mix of loam and compost. The Germans call this Hugelkultur. Over the last 4 months the soil has sunken down 6.5 inches. I topped it off with Kellogg RBS because roots were starting to show on a few tomato plants and two of them were actually falling over so I mounded up around the base with Kellogg RBS and then dumped more all around the bed. I didn't mulch the top of the soil. When the season ends I'll mix it all in with the other soil and add more in the spring before planting. Best soil ever sold at Homie Depot. My 32" high raised beds are 2 x10 x 8 Pressure treated on the bottom making the lower 20" and then above those I have two 2x6x8 Douglas Fir boards making up the walls for the top 12" required for the roots to grow in. The PT boards I was told do not leach out into the soil like past PT boards. Also I started every plant with heirloom varieties from Baker Creek Seeds. Every seed I planted grew and wasn't expecting 100% rate. My kitchen table was covered in seedlings. Not wanting to waste them I started hitting up restaraunts for 5 gallon empty pickle buckets that were all happy to share. So now my yard has 32" high raised beds and dozens of 5 gal buckets. I drilled 12- ½" holes in thd bottoms of each bucket and put them on bricks two high so the rabbits won't touch them. Just mentioned the bucket idea for anyone restricted to a patio garden. 5 gallon buckets filled with Kellogg's Raised Bed soil might be taking over my entire yard one day. My pepper plants love them as well as many tomato plants

I had to make some gopher proof beds (actually not gophers but voles and moles - the galvanized wire did not last very long at all. So the next time I found that Amazon sells stainless hardware cloth for just marginally more than the galvanized equivalent. I used 1/2" by 1/2 inch X 4 ft wide roles and after 4 years they are still liker new. Well worth the added cost. It will likely outlast me! Great videos on raised beds. My soil (I cleard a couple of acres of forest to build my house and there was NO topsoil so had to bring in all my soil and compost. I use (3) 2x6 width decking (plastic lumber for the sides - so about 15 inches in depth. Quite adequate and the trex-like lumber will never rot or leach... Not cheap but you only have to build it once. Thanks for your videos and help!

It’s supposed to snow tonight 😢 I keep watching you digging in the dirt lol

Another great video. After watching your show, back a few years, I redid my garden until it is almost all in raised beds. I love it!! One quandary I’m having is winterizing the garden. Here in MN, we have a lot of beneficial insects that winter over in the soil and/or hollow plants, bees in particular. We also have birds that come eat the seeds. I’m working toward cover crops but so far, am harvesting up until frost so don’t get the cover crop in the ground. Maybe this fall. Love your show. I’ve learned lots!!

Once again great info. Good luck in your new home. Your gardens like fabulous! Happy gardening

we built our beds at 10x4. But we also got free wood from hubby's work (construction) and they were 2x4x10. Our beds are a foot tall for ease of work for me while sitting. We have 4x4 posts in the corners that we do sink into the ground to hold beds solid. We also get partial rolls of chicken wire there too. We are lucky. Made building our garden much more affordable. We filled all our beds with compost. Our local landfill compost all yard waste & offers it for free.

You can also use rotational molded polyethylene timbers commonly found as edging with commercial playground equipment. I was able to get my hands on thirty 4'X4'X12" which made five 4'X8'X12" beds. They will never rot, are food safe and look great.

I put my garden in what used to be my front yard. I also cut down all my trees in my front yard facing south 😂. It’s awesome. Full Sun all day

I built 3 big raised beds and rookie error filled with Garden soil. The crops did fine but I had to water nearly twice as much. Amended over the seasons and now it's fine.

In tropical/sub tropical climates see if you can get banana leaves/plants that are cut down after production of fruit is done. They are great for filling the bottom of your beds. You can even use the “trunks” to grow directly in for things like lettuce and then add to compost when it starts to break down. Banana plants hold a lot of usable water well after they are cut.

I like the way you speak and share your knowledge. Great!!

Brian, your gardens are coming along nicely! Beautiful. An enormous amount of work. I can’t wait for your cottage garden to bloom and the rest to start producing! It looks like a lot of fun! I hope you can finish the brick laying project, even though it’s hard, boring work at this point. The whole thing is beautiful!

While you didn't talk about it, I noticed that you used screws to connect your pvc pipes. I think that's a great idea and will try it this year rather than using pvc cement to construct my tomato trellis.

I live in S. Indiana and here, Hay and straw are two entirely different things. I learned a lot from your video however. Friendly suggestion about the hay/straw.

Excellent coverage, Brian! 👏👏👏

Thank you for another great video! You've done a beautiful job in your landscaping/ garden. Can't wait for a midsummer garden tour!😊 Something you might consider trying if you've had grazon damage is to try planting sunflowers in that spot. I got in a conversation in the comment section of another channel I use with someone who said sunflowers will pull heavy metals from the soil. Could be a possibility sunflowers would pull that out too. There's plot of ground I'm going to try this. Anything to clean the soil.

I am fixing to build some raised beds. Thanks for the tips!

14:30 I doubt you will even see this but instead of adding more soil I add more cedar shavings used for horse beds. It does a great job holding moisture in and creates a microrizal layer just under it. This actually adds more nutrients to your garden soil and reduces the need for watering by a factor of at least 5. Without that layer I would have to water pretty much every day. With it I only have to water maybe once or twice a week. I like cedar shavings because they also are a good slug deterant and other unwanted bugs. If you found this useful check out Pawsuasive Dog Teaching. My Ruby Doo knows over 60 service dog tasks. We would love your support.

I was too busy looking at the gorgeous mountain view, I had to keep rewinding to hear what you were saying. 😂

Great information! Especially about the space between boxes.. to be able to kneel comfortably-Thank you

We have the Vego metal raised beds. We tried filling the 32in with all the soils, but when we put in the U shape 17inch high. We went to Arizona's worm compost for raised beds. What a difference. We even went back and took the worm class and brought home our own worms..

I had 4x8 bed for several years but found I much prefer smaller beds I can move around more easily. All my beds are plain Doug fir, still going strong.

Great video Brian thanks! Have a blessed week ❣️🤗🙏

excellent tips. I'm a complete and utter brown finger gardener. This gives me hope.

Great video! But we can't use wood here in my part of West Tennessee, too many termites! So hubby and I purchased plastic food safe 4' x 4' x 12" tall raised beds and used the same hardware cloth (we have tons of moles/voles too!) And put down cardboard then put in Kellogg's with black cow manure. We did find plastic, soft and hard, glass and some wire in it, and some had mold, I'm sorry to say, but not as much as some of the other ones I've bought. I like it better than the other organic mixes, it looks and feels nicer so far. It also seems to have more of the white vermiculite or perlite in it, which even my hubby noticed! I still have 3 more beds to fill this coming weekend, 😂, and it will be with Kellogg's! Just wanted to add plastic raised garden beds are an option for those in spots like we are, didn't mean to ramble on and on!

Great tips! When I first built my raised beds I was told to use cedar because it would last the longest. Unfortunately for me it only lasted 3 years before they were rotting so bad the soil was totally spilling out onto the ground in the paths. To me it doesn’t make sense to spend that much money to build the bed just to have to replace it a few years later. I ended up replacing them with Vego metal raised beds and am so glad I did. They work really well, look so much nicer and will last a long time. I also experimented with using one of those fabric raised beds and didn’t like that much. The soil in that bed was the same as my wooden beds but it dried out much faster and plants wouldn’t grow because within 24 hours after watering really well the soil was bone dry again.

This is some really good advice! You are the reason I have my raised beds and why they are doing so well!!

i love using the scraps from my woodworking as mulch, especially cedar! keeps some bugs away

I used 2x6 redwood, with concrete corner blocks stacked three high. Still need to cut planks to bring the wood level to the top of the corners as I add soil through the years, I will do that. I drove rebar into the center holes of the corner blocks to hold them. Just finished the third year.

Just an FYI, in zone 5a with pretty cold winters and lots of snow, winter rye cover crop doesn't die. But you just mow it tight in the spring and dig it in.

This is really detailed and thorough video, great job. I got so many questions answered I feel almost ready to get started!

I've been experimenting growing behind a wooden fence that gets near no sunlight, contaminated and compact soil no matter how much you turn it up and water it. It's amazing to see what struggles and what flourishes. by year 3 I dont have a space that doesn't have colourful growth .

I have gardened in a lot of raised beds of various types, over the years. Can't wait to hear your perspective! I am a foodie and home cook and having high quality herbs and produce is the reason I garden! Nothing better than your own home grown produce and herbs! I grew carrots and potatoes in resin barrels from Home Depot. I drilled holes in the bottom for drainage. The resin barrels are light weight and not expensive. Carrots need fluffy dirt! They are prissy lil things and don't like hard dirt. The resin barrels I bought were about 14" tall and 17" across, as I recall.

Thanks, Brian. So informative!

I like the spaces between the beds to be wide enough for a wheel barrel to get around. So 36” gives me enough room to maneuver a wheel barrel around to add soil or for weeding.

I am in the process of putting hardware cloth on all my beds and raising my beds taller

What a beautiful view to garden in.

Excellent video! Thanks for sharing this info with us

Good to hear ur take on the pressure treated wood. So many people just say tgat yes, it totally safe nowadays..... My intuition keeps on saying it might not be that safe 😮‍💨 we ve got so huge toxicity issues on the planet that any tiny bit that can be avoided is a win 😊

I’ve been listening, so I’m doing some of the things you’ve suggested. I am indeed building my beds on a cement pad, so I chose 2x6 cedar and made it three layers, equals to about 16 inches or so. I’m using raised garden bed mix for about the top 8 inches, hopefully that will work, you suggested 12. Bottom is filled with a layer of card board and some so limbs or shredded wood and then a layer of half composted leaves, they aren’t broken down all the way yet. Hopefully that layer isn’t to thick.

My raised container garden, is buckets, and totes, that are on beams laid across milk crates. That way, the top of my soil level is about 24-30 inches above the driveway! That makes it MUCH easier for me to reach without having to bend down so much. I've even been considering lifting them up a little bit higher, but I'm concerned about wind!

Great explanation of why to use cover crops. Thanks!

Thank you for this video! I learned several great tips which I will put to use immediately.

I have a 4x8 no till fabric raised bed for my medicinal plants. No till growing is the best by far. I plan on using what I’ve learned to make some outdoor beds for a garden next year.

Props to all RU-vidrs for trying to teach people. I helped some inlaws with their garden a few years back. They wanted raised beds mostly due to reduced weeding. Well, my brother in law would eat dogfood if socially acceptable to save a buck. So they built them four inches tall, would not invest in automated watering, refused to bother composting their scraps even in the garden directly. Two years later, the garden went unused this year, they complain about back pain because theyre so low, and hated watering all the time. Im not one to hold my tongue. I guilt trip the crap out of em for wasting their money, their time, and my time. 😅

Very clear and instructive. Thanks!

Yes, I learned something. A lot. Thank you!! Helps very much.

Great video Brian 👵🏻👩‍🌾❣️

Thanks for the old fart raised bed ideas for me . This video had a lot of great information thanks for sharing these ideas .

Thank you for the extensive detail. You've thought of everything - great task analysis :O)

If I were to fill my raised beds with the type of material you recommend, I would have to have more children because they're going to charge me my first born. Considering the cost of materials to build the beds, buy the right kind of soil, getting row covers, paying for the water system, the cost of the water, having to buy wood chips, winter protection, garden tools, weed killers/fertilizers and even the cost of the seed itself, I've come to the conclusion that I would get off a lot cheaper just buying organic from my local farmers market. It's so sad that in order to do anything well today, the costs usually out-way the benefits, especially if you take your labour into account.

I have 2 high raised beds, they are above ground and narrow about 36" high and 20" deep. Just the best for the small space and limited sun, not to mention my back appreciates them :) Pressure treated wood but fully lined with 2 6mil food safe plastic so should be good to go for a long time and the joy I get from them, just awesome. :D

You may want to try wood pellet made for horse bedding. So easy to handle, don’t blow away in the wind when you are applying them, and a quick misting of water expands the pellets and breaks them apart into a beautiful fluffy mulch. When I was still in the states I used these for all my gardens. Each bag covers much more than you think it will.

Such valuable information- THANK YOU!

Thanks so much, great info, I am just starting out, so this was gold, Next Level thanks from UK

Last fall I dug some drainage trenches around my back yard and ended up with several significant piles of dirt. I plan to add several more metal raised beds in the back garden by putting branches, yard and food waste (including ground eggshell), and add some of that soil to fill the voids in the bottom. Then I mix bagged garden soil, mushroom compost, and pete moss to fill it up the rest of the way. So far it has worked well for me. I just give the worms food at the bottom to draw them in and they work their way up to the top... but since I'm building these over existing beds, they don't need new zip codes.

I plant Daikon Radish in the fall for cover. I leave the radishes in the ground, when they die off they leave behind nitrogen.