Raised bed gardens?

[zacattack]

My kids convinced me to do a garden this year. So, now I need to figure out how to have a raised bed, without it being permanent. I was thinking of just growing them in the plastic buckets or even 5 gallon buckets. Anyone have any other ideas or methods they use? Mostly we have tomato, cucumber, and sunflowers.

 

[Flben]

you can get concrete corners that take 2x8s and just set on the ground

 

[Northern-Nomad]

I move around a lot for my job so I decided to give these a try this year. Got the barrels from a diner nearby for $10 per. So far the only issue has been the little bear moving the dirt from one to another.

 

[StuckoYota99]

We used galvanized raised garden beds off Amazon 4' long x 2' wide. We have 10 them in our garden.

 

[SWOHTR]

Don’t do the pot thing, it’s so annnoying and they rip over and get root bound.

Do the 2x8 thing with concrete corners.

 

[3forks]

Others have given you pretty good ideas, but you can use unframed mounds, too.

We use traditional raised beds, but a neighbor doesn’t use anything but mounds on the ground and they seem to get just as much production as we do.

 

[dlee56]

Any reason you can’t do an in ground bed?
We wanted to do raised beds but the soil is so dang expensive we did in ground and the produce was incredible, and the setup/care was super easy. Rented a big tiller from a local hardware store for $40 and prepped the whole 15’x 30’ bed in a day. That being said we are approaching it more for the food production (peppers, tomatoes, squash, sweet potatoes) so for a hobby garden some of the other options may be better. We did use some of those 15gal grow bags off amazon and they held up well for the season, will be using them again for sunchokes this year.

 

[LongWayAround]

My neighbor bought some sort of crate from Craigslist. They look like 1x8's with metal fasteners at the corners. I see them all over town.

 

[Wheels]

We have a 4x4’ raised bed made out of cedar boards, had to add screening around it to keep the cats and deer out of it.

 

[ericmcd]

I used a culvert that I cut to the height I wanted with a torch. If you have access to any old ones you can make a bunch and they look good and will last forever

 

[zacattack]

Any reason you can’t do an in ground bed?
We wanted to do raised beds but the soil is so dang expensive we did in ground and the produce was incredible, and the setup/care was super easy. Rented a big tiller from a local hardware store for $40 and prepped the whole 15’x 30’ bed in a day. That being said we are approaching it more for the food production (peppers, tomatoes, squash, sweet potatoes) so for a hobby garden some of the other options may be better. We did use some of those 15gal grow bags off amazon and they held up well for the season, will be using them again for sunchokes this year.

Our subdivision is home to about a million rabbits, our plants on the ground don’t stand a chance

 

[Trumpkin The Dwarf]

Our subdivision is home to about a million rabbits, our plants on the ground don’t stand a chance

Sounds like the perfect excuse to teach your kids about trapping and skinning... Rabbit eats better than celery anyways!

 

[svivian]

Buy some old stock tanks a rancher has for cheap. They work great

 

[I live in round valley]

Check out straw bale gardening. A very non-permanent option that works well and is cost effective

 

[Agross]

We built a couple at our place with cinder blocks. You can go however high you want. I had a bunch of em already so only had to buy about half of em, when they went on sale. I only went two courses high and the rabbits have left em alone. I may go another course higher this year just for ease of use. We live in the middle of the woods/thick stuff, we have an unreal amount of rabbits around. It’s the deer we have to deal with.

 

[juju]

A hot wire 3" off the ground will handle the rabbits. If you buy soil for tomatoes, be sure it does not contain Aminopyralid.

 

[ben h]

I think these are the blocks mentioned earler in the thread. I'm going to try these this year for a couple beds.

 

[KsRancher]

I love the idea of raised beds. My wife and tried them. They just weren't for us. I think it might be where we live. We live in the western side if south central Kansas. The heat and wind get brutal. Ours didn't produce well and took a lot of water. I think the soil temps got high and we couldn't hardly water enough. We have better luck in the ground. I know this isn't what the OP asked. But thought it might be useful info

 

[flathead#2]

Raised beds, pots, barrels, etc... seem to need a LOT more water.
At least here on the Gulf Coast.

 

[Broken Twigg]

Raise bed soil -You can buy it premixed, but it is usually more expense this way. I use the following and it is similar to Mel’s Mix

Soil Mix:
Peat Moss ¼
Vermiculite or Perlite ¼
Mixed Source Compost ½ (use 3 or 4 different types of compost)

Amendments per 3’x8’ bed
Worm Castings 2lb (Cheap at Costco right now)
Azomite 2lb (Get a 10lb bag on Amazon, this adds a lot of micronutrients)

Additional info:

Raise beds are fine at about 8” deep. If you do them on bare ground, remove the sod if possible first. Put a layer of clean cardboard down and stab holes in throughout with a knife. This will allow drainage, helps hold worms and moisture.

Tomato Plants: you will want to add calcium to avoid blossom rot. Get a cheap bottle of calcium supplement pills. When the tomatoes start to produce, break 2 pills in half and bury spread out over each plants roots. This will add a clean source of calcium. You may need to add 1 or 2 more pills late season.

Do not use pressure treated or tar soaked wood, the toxins will get into your veggies. You can use most wood types, but cedar is the best. You can also use these metal beds.

If you use a deep bed, like a horse trough, put old logs in the bottom to take up space. This will save money and will slowly feed you plants. Do not use high sap or resin woods.

Once your bed is full of soil and ready to plant, you can cover with landscape fabric. Cut holes to plant your veggies, then put plain (undyed hardwood) mulch to cover the fabric like you would in a flower bed. This will help hold moisture so you can water less and it will keep unwanted weeds out. This is optional, but I find it helps a lot with moisture retention and helps prevent the spread of yellow leaf.

Read through the square foot gardening site. There should be a guide for how close you can space your plants. It is much closer than in a regular garden.

Learn to properly compost. This will help you in the coming years with topping off your raisebeds to replenish them.

This isn't the only way to garden, its just what I have found that works for me.