If you enjoyed this video, please "Like" and share to help increase its reach! Thanks for watching 😊TIMESTAMPS for convenience: 0:00 How To Design A Raised Garden Bed 2:09 Materials List For Raised Beds 3:08 Measuring And Cutting The Lumber 5:04 Building The DIY Raised Garden Bed 7:56 Building Railings To Sit On 9:48 Sealing The Bed For Longevity 10:37 The Finished Raised Garden Bed 12:11 Adventures With Dale
Great video, question? I want to build just like that but, I want 2 of them that are 2 foot by 10 foot, what extra material would be needed? Or would you use same material and just cut your 4 footers down to 2 foot?
Love this video, but having been a journeyman carpenter for 40 years I sure wish I could have loaned or gifted you a couple of tools that would have made your life simpler; namely either a framing square or more likely a 12"combination square. You do competent work and had some good tips like predrilling. I just use a fastener that is specific to structural wood constructions along with some metal corner reinforcement and avoid the predrilling. Watching and listening to you makes me think you had been a 2nd grade teacher, because you really make it simple and easy. Us old "pros" can overcomplicate things too easily thinking we are making it "better". Kudos.
Thanks so much for posting! Helpful to have your pro point of view :-) affirming my feeling like this may be the design + steps I want to follow to build my first “real” raised beds
I just made three 2'x8'x8" raised beds, and lined the bottoms with 1/4 inch hardware cloth (Voles!). These are new additions to my garden today. My garden consists of a 10x12 polytunnel greenhouse (also new), 8 raised beds of various sizes, 24 grow bags (10 gal to 30 gal), two GreenStalk towers, and 7 assorted pots.
If they don’t sit on the top rail, me I have a small portable seat for gardening! But now! With your good instructions, I think I will try to do it by myself ! Thanks.
+1 On predrilling your holes. Your project looks great! A square makes marking out lines pretty simple. You can also use it as a guide for the side of your circular saw as you cut to keep your cuts straight. The top rail is a nice touch. Not only does it give you a place to sit, it can stop the boards from bowing out. If your beds are longer than about 8 feet, or made from thinner material, you may need to take steps to keep the boards from bowing. I used some very thin material one time and I nailed a couple of pieces of thick wire to each side of the bed to keep it from bowing out. I placed it about one third up from the bottom so it wasn't visible once I filled it w dirt. I ran it inside a 3/4 piece of pvc cut to fit perfectly inside the bed so that I didn't cut the wire by accident when I was digging in the bed later. If you are a bit OCD and want your beds perfectly square, measure the diagonal corners. When they are the same length, your corners are square. Two mistakes that I made on mine: 1) I didn't do a good job of leveling them. So the soil is higher on side then the other, even though the soil level is pretty level. 2) I assumed since I sat my beds on native soil that I also double dug, that drainage would not be an issue. Wrong. My native soil is called Gumbo, and it has a lot of clay in it. I had to go back in and add a porous drain pipe like you use in French drains to my beds. Then I cut a small opening in one side of the bed for the drain to empty out of.
So RIGHT that a raised garden bed should NOT be wider than 4 ft. I am a 5ft 2in woman and I stupidly built my first raised bed 5 ft wide. After a year of suffering w/it, I tore it apart and reduced it to 3 1/2 ft. wide. YOU AND DALE MAKE BEAUTIFUL 'MUSAK' TOGETHER!!
4 feet is very close to my limit. Even at 4 feet, I dislike stretching to the center of my beds. Luckily, Dale's beautiful voice covered up most of mine 😂
Give you lots of respect...moving that bed alone must have been brutal! You love your viewers 💖 And I love how you two boys play🤭🐕💜. What a duet!👏👏👏👏🥰👍
You can really get away with 7.5” deep beds for yourself?! That’s wild. I’m a metal worker, I made a bed out of 1/8” sheet steel. It’s 4x8 but 24” deep. I just can’t believe that your beds are so shallow and you have such good success. Sometimes when I plant a start, I dig a hole as deep as your bed. I’m in Phoenix though, we have hard pack clay soil. Gotta be way above that to have success. Been digging your videos man. Thanks for all the content
I have beds that are 5" deep (Frame it All recycled plastic) I have grown eggplant, lettuce, arugula and even baby carrots, beets and radishes in them. we have clay soil that turns to brick in summer drought. So that's the point of building raised beds, you fill them with your own good soil. We used Mel's Mix - 1/3 peat moss, 1/3 vermiculite, and 1/3 mixed compost. Hope that helps your situation!
Great video! I followed your design going 3 boards high instead. Used rough sawn cedar. My wife likes it. Had to move into place before finishing due to the weight. Thanks!
Just a tip for anyone building one of these, put a 2x2 under the top rail and use screws just long enough so they don’t penetrate the surface. Attach the 2x2 inside and do all your screwing up into the top rail. The holes from screwing top down will fill with water and rot a lot quicker.
The height is relative to what you want to grow. They'd have a tough time with tomatoes if I made it any taller since they can get tough to reach even at ground level. Always consider what you'll be growing in it.
Your raised bed looks good -- I'm in my seventies and not sure how long I want to keep tossing around the Roto-tiller --- so -- maybe it's getting time to be thinking about a raised bed or two ---- Thank You
It's definitely a lot easier. Raised beds are less maintenance than earth beds. But be sure you build it in the spot you want it to be, because this weighs hundreds of pounds once finished.
That’s a nice looking raised bed. Love the railing to sit on. Going to use recycled deck boards to make some gotta add that railing. I think I will build mine in place, not sure how you moved that treated wood is heavy 😊
Moving that bed was absolute murder. It must've weighed 400-500 lbs. I built it where I did for the filming angle because the lighting in the back was terrible, so I suffered through it, but I recommend anyone building this on their own build it exactly where it needs to go, or move it when it's just four boards and the 4x4 posts before you add the second row of wood and the railings.
I used concrete blocks for part of mine. Some of my ones with treated lumber didn't hold up. The 4x4s started rotting. Now I'm doing more wicking tubs.
What a great tutorial! You help me believe my 64 year old self can do this. If you are a novice, it seems you're well on your way to many years of greater and greater creativity. 🌞 I have a question... It wasn't clear to me if you painted the linseed oil only on the 2x4's or also on the treated wood. Thanks. 🌱
I did the math at my local big box store and three 2x6's were cheaper than two 2x8's, so I made mine with 2x6's. I made mine on the drive way also and then had to carry them about 150 feet by myself I decided to move the construction site to on location after the first one.
When I built my raised bed I used 2X4 support all on the outside of the bed. Did not use any growing space and allowed better support for top lumber bigger than 2X4. Just an idea. Mine definitely did not look like furniture.
Hello My Friend! I appreciate all that you share with all of us "Gardeners". Thank you! One question: How deep should I calculate for the loam, garden soil, compost etc. , I can calculate the CY, i just need to know the depth that you recommend for the dimensions of this raised bed. Awesome Video! Please continue teaching us gardeners! Thank you in Advance for your response!
GREAT JOB. QUESTION I WAS WONDERING WHAT IS THAT GROUND COVER ON YOUR GROUND WHERE YOU HAVE THE BIG CONTAINERS. IS IT ROOFING TAR PAPER OR SOMETHING ELSE? THANK YOU FOR SHARING. TELL DALE HI AND I JUST LOVE HIM. ❤
I would have liked to see the final product, I still don't get where you sit. You sit with your back to the garden? You sitting with your feet in the garden?
Forgive me if this was mentioned, but personally I would stay away from treated lumber. Modern treated lumber is not nearly as bad as the old arsenic based lumber, but it’s still not something I want my garden in personally. To each their own. If I recall correctly both organic and “naturally grown” certified growers cannot use treated lumber in their growing operations (soil contact). But, great simple build! Also check out Timber Pro UV internal wood stabilizer… Seems to be holding up well on my raised beds 3 years in!
totally agree. it's awful for youtubers to claim things like "it's perfectly safe" as if they know every single chemical added and what it does and if it can or cannot leach out of the wood over time. Which it does as the board breaks down slowly.
There is no reason to avoid micronized copper azole treated lumber. Doing so is just setting money on fire. All the myths surrounded PT lumber are just that - myths. Making fear-based decisions rarely lead to the right answer. MCA treated lumber has been tested to death. Even soil "leaching" tests taken right up against the boards show the "leaching" is so insignificant it doesn't even alter copper levels beyond normal soil parameters, and even if it did, it wouldn't matter because it's non-toxic. Organic fruit tree sprays are copper-based. I voluntarily spray all my plants directly with copper in June, so worrying about insignificant amounts in the soil just doesn't make sense. I would much rather have a little copper in my soil than untreated lumber coated in linseed oil, which actually *is* toxic. Seriously. That stuff is real poison, which is why it acts as a great sealant.
So you were saying that you have your beds at roughly 8" deep. everything does fine in a shallow bed like that? That would save me a ton of time and money
Thats funny cause thats exactly what mine looks like it. I have 4ftx 20 feet. But because I cant bend I made mine 3ft high. Excapt I didnt think about a rail.
We decided against the sitting rail due to spiders/critters taking up residence underneath. We can sit on the narrow edge of the side board for short periods when needed.
DO NOT worry about the filling costs. You can literally put ANYTHING til your first 12 inches. Even your HEAVY feeders' tomatoes won't need anything more than 11 1/2 inches to 12 inches. So for example, you could just get 50lbs' bags of sand at just a couple of bucks each, filler it up to your last 12 inches. To save even more, you can in place compost up to your last few inches (4" or so) and just use the "expensive" stuffs then.
Dale was literally crying curled up on his bed while I was editing this together at night. It was so funny 😅 This is a lot easier than you think. If I can build it, anyone can.
You can line the bottom with natural brown cardboard. Whether you want to put wood or logs in there may depend on your climate. If you live in rainy areas, you'll need to decide how much water you want your beds to hold and at what depth you'll want the water to hold. It's a balance.
Whether you seal your raised beds is up to you. You can seal it with whatever you want as long as it's non-toxic, or you can skip the step entirely, but the raised beds may not last quite as long.
It depends what you fill it with and where you order it from. I buy soil from local landscaping supplies by the truckload, because it is far cheaper. That’s how I filled all my beds. You can often buy an entire dump truck full for the cost of 60 bags at a big box store.
I don't remember, because I built it back in November and waited until now to cut it together when it was more applicable since spring is coming. Lumber prices have dropped a lot since then, and it wasn't all that bad at the time.
I recommend ordering in truckloads of fill from local landscape supply places. I filled mine all with locally made compost. It's much, much, much cheaper ordering it by the truck versus going to stores and buying bags. You'll go broke that way. Some people fill the first half of deep beds with things like sticks and shredded leaves, but you have to be careful if you live in very wet climates. They tend to work very well in drier areas, but if you live in places with a lot of rain like I do, you may want to find what works best in wet climates. All my beds are filled with 100% locally made compost ordered in by the dump truck.
I don't remember. It wasn't that bad. It depends on the lengths you buy. Lumber has also come down *a lot* since I built this bed. This video was from back in November.
It won't rot for a long time. My beds are going on 5 years old, and the wood is absolutely perfect. No signs of decay. PT wood will last 10+ years, maybe even longer.
help me understand this raised garden theory . when I have good ground to grow , why would I do raised gardens that seem to need more water. mom and family folks had BIG PRODUCTIVE gardens . they kept limber by the exercise of gardening. mom had half acre of strawberries,and sold them, plus potatoes, onions,beans tomatoes, rhubarb, corn, etc without raised beds . regular gardens are closer to ground water . 😊 lots of lumber $$$$ costs. that most folks can't afford to start gardens at today's lumber prices. b
You can grow in the earth if you want. The reason why most don’t is because the overwhelming majority of soil is not good to grow in. It is either too rocky, too nutrient poor, poor drainage, etc. Raised beds outperform. They drain better, they keep weeds and pests out better, and they look better, too. Earth beds are too prone to flooding and erosion. Here, they don’t work, and they won’t work for most people.
I agree with millennial, except to add that you don't really need lumber to accomplish this. In the country they call that a berm with useless wood around it 🤣
You can work the soil much earlier have fewer weeds to get rid of and they pull out so easy. Less cultivation just to mention a few. Be good to your back and knees now and you’ll have them longer. 😂
Some people have small concrete yards and have to use raised beds or containers. I use 27 gallon storage bins from the big box store. They don't rot or cost a lot compared to lumber.
Our earth where I’m at is very hard. I would probably have had to use a soil conditioner and/ or till years ago. My raised beds work great for me. I have spinal issues and I STILL have issues with 12 inch beds. I think this is a great idea, making it deeper. I always envy those who CAN grow directly into the earth 🌍. There are some gardeners who use a chair and place a big tote on it and fill it up with leaves and sticks on the bottom as to use less soil. Everyone is different. All ideas welcomed! 💜🍁🌱💜
FYI To anyone using boiled linseed oil !!!!! If you apply it with rags or gauze. Never put the rags into your trash can with your regular trash. ESPECIALLY inside the home or garage. The oily rags get very hot and spontaneously combust. You can burn your house down from a fire. Stay safe everyone ! 🕊️🙏💟
Keep in mind linseed oil is actually fairly poisonous. Yes, it's a natural product, but it's also a stain. I don't mind painting the railings with the product, but you don't want to get the oil in your soil.
@@hoosierpioneer you spread them out flat and spread out on a non-flammable surface with high airflow or on a metal-wire clothesline outside. The oil will oxidize and after 1 to 7 days (different varieties take different amounts of time to cure) the rags will be safe to throw out. The heat comes from oxidation of the linseed oil, but generally doesn't get hot enough to combust *unless you have poor airflow or wrinkled/stacked cloth* in which case the heat can't dissipate faster than it is produced, leading to self-ignition. A trashcan or pile of rags will restrict airflow enough to actually trap the heat and trigger ignition.
RECOMMENDATION: Make the beds at least 24" high for those of us with poor backs. It's even easier on the back and knees. To save on soil, fill the bottom 30-40% of the bed with wood logs, branches, and clean yard waste and then add soil on top of that. Just drive around your neighborhood and you likely will find an abundance of yard waste that you can fill your truck bed or trailer up with.
This is the way, it's called hügelkultur. Most plants only need at most like 8 inches of space for their roots, so just fill the beds up to that point with whatever cheap or free biomass you can get ahold of (as long as you're sure it doesn't have chemicals etc. in it) then fill the last 8, MAYBE 10 inches with the soil you would normally use. Over the long term the wood and sticks and leaves that you fill the bottom with will compost and create a nice rich loam in the bed and in the short term you get the benefits of building higher raised beds without having to break the bank buying a lot more soil. Wood and leaves and stuff are free, neighbors will generally be happy to let you haul their yard debris away. Only thing to watch out for with this is planting perennials in it. As the stuff you put in the bottom breaks down the soil level will drop and you'll need to fill with more soil over time to get the level back up to where it should be, so at least for the first few years of this bed's life you should fill it with plants that you expect to replace each year.
@@chriswhinery925 Thanks Chris. Yes, my beds drop a good 5-6 inches each year requiring me to top them off back to within 1/2 to 1 inch below the top of the bed at the start of each growing season.
I've done this method with my 30 ft raised beds.. saved a load of money and the good bugs loved it ! My crops did too. I'm doing it again with a galvanized bed. I started in August and used it like a compost .. It's snowy here so it has shrunk down .. it's just so easy .. well if you have logs or limbs and branches that is, we sure do. Well.. take care and God bless you
That's a nicely put-together bed with great instructions. I have 4 that size that we made out of clean upcycle construction lumber we got for free. I also have 4 16' cattle panels we arched between beds (2 beds per side). Thanks again for another helpful video. Cost doesn't always have to be an issue with imagination. I also put dried tree limbs/stumps in bottom of each bed to lesson the actual soil I needed for garden. Got from Gardner Scott.
I love the instructions. I was given a bunch of treated fence pickets and 4x4 posts to build some, and planned on using a similar building method. I hadn’t considered a top railing, though. My fence pickets are thinner than your side pieces, so I may not be able to do a railing. I’m also using recycled protein buckets my cousin buys her cows, because there is a never ending supply of them. I’m using all free to me products for my garden beds.
Great video - thank you for sharing. Realize things change in a year since you made this video but would like people to know Lowes (at least all of our local store) are disinclined to make special cuts. They will cut a long board in half to fit in a small truck or car. Home Depot will cut as much as you need in any size.
That's exactly how I made my raised beds. They are 24 inches high and I can sit on them. Such a big difference. I'll put it in my next video soon. Thanks for sharing and have a great day and happy gardening 🌿🌱😊🤗
It definitely makes life a lot easier. I wish all my beds were like this, but when I built my garden, I had to do it on a major budget. Later in life, my beds will be like this!
How did you move the bed to the final location? It must have weighed a few hundred pounds. Nothing easy to move. When I moved my 4X8, 13-inch tall bed, I used a two wheel moving tool. Not easy but I got it in place. I'm just wondering if there is a better easier way.
I have two similarly-sized raised beds, 4' x 12' x 14" with no cap. They are about 10 years old, made from PT 2 x's with polyethylene film liner. The middle bottom was anchored by a 2 x 2 PT stake driven into the ground about 10" on the outside. The middle top was connected to the other side with a 2 x 4 held with two 3" deck screws on each end. The force exerted by the soil in a 14" high bed is substantial. The 2 x 2 stakes on the bottom were just pushed over. The 2 x 4 cross support at the top pulled out on one end with the deck screws just pulling through the end of the 2 x 4. Lessons learned, so for my next two raised beds I used 2 x 4 PT stakes at the bottom, driven 16" into the ground. For the top I used 5/16" galvanized wire rope with eyes made using thimbles and nicropress fittings. Each eye is attached to the top of the side with a 5" long 1/2" galvanized lag bolt. This arrangement seems to be doing the trick with no bowing after 5 years. I suggest you consider doing something similar to your design.
Since the ground is rarely flat or level itself, when I make this style of raised bed, I build the bottom rectangle first. I leave the leg posts long and with a level, lift the low corners of the rectangle frame to be level with the highest corner and set the screws into the leg posts. At that point, you can add more levels then cut the leg posts off flush at the top with a sawzall. This makes the top of the bed level rather than matching the ground’s slope. If necessary, I can mulch around the bottoms to hide the gap. I have even used gravel.
No, he explained in this video and in another one --- big box stores and other lumber suppliers can no longer sell lumber treated with toxic chemicals to prevent rot. They must now use a non toxic copper-based solution to treat the lumber. In fact, he said, the same copper solution is used as a anti-fungal or pesticide (I forget which) to spray directly on crops.
the board to sit on needs to be wider than a skinny 4 inches, lol, more like 10 inches! which would require some additional supporting timber; this makes it easier not just for sitting but also for putting a flat of seedlings on the board (flats are 10 x 20) or your tools. Just my .02.
I strongly recommend another two x eight at least. Less thank 16” high came be a difficult height to manage with bad knees hips and back or ever only one leg and it with a bad knee. Just ask me about that. My raised beds have been 16to 18” high I would recommend a wider seat rail say 2x6or better yet 2x8. If you may want it to overhang the outside to ave your bedding space. Good video. I like the linseed oil. Treated lumber tends to get splintery very quickly. Hey filling can be easy with cardboard leaves or old hay. Each year as things settle you can top dress with more good soil. Been using these high raised beds for 20 years in two counties.
It's going to depend on your situation. Another 7.25 inches high would mean your soil line is going to be at almost 2 feet high. Considering plants like tomatoes start to fruit about 1-2 feet above the soil line, that means your very first cluster of tomatoes is going to be in the 3-4ft range. That's really high up, and as the tomatoes continue to grow, once they start reaching 5-6 feet in height, they may be unreachable. You don't want to have to bring out ladders to harvest or tie your plants, so getting too high is a problem in and of itself.
20 yrs and never had a problem. The gardener’s height comes into play of course. Most of us can stretch easier than stoop down. The plans of construction are great and we can build to suit for sure. 😊
I made my boxes 30" high, and used 5" screws into the 4x4s. Also, an extra board, slightly underground, going across the bed between 4x4s in the middle, to keep the bed from bowing out. That was a lot of redwood and potting soil!
Another great video! I am really impressed with the commentaries as well. I would suggest that installing an irrigation system will improve the gardening experience for those of a certain age.
Super video!! A GOOD chance I’ll make one of these!! Can you say a bit about ‘filler’ for beds? Like branches from pruning trees and bushes and other organic material to ‘fill’ a bed so you don’t have to come by loads and loads of soil? Thus cutting the soil needs by half? 👍👊
Usually, that's done when beds are deeper than 18 inches. In the raised beds in my garden, they're made of 2x8's, but the bottom is open so the plants can grow into the native soil. With a bed like this that's only 15-16 inches deep, it doesn't really make sense to fill the bed with other materials. I guess you can use chopped up leaves in a 6 inch layer if you have access to them, but I wouldn't use any sticks or logs, because you'll essentially be limiting the root growth. The best way to save costs is to order your soil in by the dump truck from a local landscaping place, because it's substantially cheaper (and easier) than going to a store and getting lots of expensive bags of mix. Most landscaping places make their own garden mix. In my case, all my beds are filled with 100% turkey compost made on-site, so you can fill beds with 100% compost if you wish.
If you plan on using un-treated wood on the top, I suggest cutting to length first, coating all surfaces with linseed oil then installing on top, I am planning on making tall raised soon using corrugated metal and pressure treated lumber. The treated lumber will be stained and finished with either shellac or tung oil which holds up better in an exterior environment both products are food safe. All lumber will be stained and finished on all sides before assembly. Stain does help some to resist UV exposure, but I am applying for aesthetics!
We had to move the bed quite a distance, and I wasn't dealing with carrying an oily bed. It was definitely the last thing we were doing. Be careful with some of the oils. Even if the oils are technically "food safe," you don't want oils in your soil. I would much rather have tiny, insignificant amounts of MCA pressure treat leach than oils. Make sure it cures fully before you add your soil.
I love your channel, however these days this build is beyond the means of most people. To build and to fill. It would be nice, but most of us are trying to eat and pay bills. Thanks, but sorry, no thanks. We use construction block with thd 4 slits in them and place 2-2x4s or 2x6 in the slots. You cant sitnon them however, which is a nice feature of yours. Very inexpensive.
You're free to make this however you want. This bed was not expensive to build, and lumber prices have dropped substantially since I built this in November. You're not required to even buy lumber. Lumber is thrown away every single day. Go drive past construction sites and take the lumber out of the dumpsters. It's there for the taking. Check Craigslist. Free or cheap wood is given away every week. These things are investments. If you aren't investing in yourself and searching for good deals, you're harming yourself. Don't throw your hands up in the air and give up.
We made our raised bed 2 feet, I believe. But we filled the extra on bottom with really spongy dead wood, leaves, chicken hay etc. The thought was to hugelkulture down there so in a few years we can dig it all out and disperse it among other beds. Then we can do it again. We got our dead wood by cruising the backroads, foraging out of ditches. We did a solid foot above with compost and soil
When you put in a raised bed do you place it on the ground or on the ground cover. If on the ground how do you keep the weeds/grass from coming up? We are in SC and LOVE you channel!!
I place it directly on the ground. If you're setting it on a lawn, mow that patch as low as it'll go and break down a couple natural, brown cardboard boxes (with the tape and stickers removed). Line the bottom of the bed with a layer of cardboard and place the soil on top of that. The natural cardboard will snuff out the weeds and naturally break down in about 3-6 months. Earthworms love eating wet, decaying natural cardboard. Just don't use colored cardboard. Brown is best.
Very pretty box. I want to buy you a framing square for Christmas! I like to use stakes in the center of my long spans to reduce bulging, but I think that 2x4 on top will probably take care of most of that.
I have one, but it isn't necessary for this. These beds square themselves. The biggest problem you'll have is the natural bends in lumber, especially PT lumber. I let it sit stacked for a month before I used it.
@@secretjourney4815 Old cardboard, weed block fabric, or just lay it down over the grass like he did here. That 15 inches of soil you fill it with will kill off the grass.
It is generally not recommended to use AWPA U1 UC4A pressure-treated wood for vegetable gardens or any other application where the wood will come into direct contact with edible plants. This is because the chemicals used in the preservative treatment can potentially leach out of the wood over time and into the surrounding soil, which could then be taken up by the plants. Although copper-based preservatives like those used in AWPA U1 UC4A are generally considered to be low-toxicity, they are still chemicals that are designed to prevent decay and insect damage. It is possible that these chemicals could have a negative impact on the health of edible plants or the people consuming them.
I have 3’x8’x12” deep but I think I need to add more soil its going down So after my season plants I Will add more and mulch it, thanks for this great tips 👩🌾😊👍👍
