Our raised garden beds are almost done! In this blog, I want to show you how we made our raised garden beds and go over some ideas for your own.

DIY Raised Garden Beds

There are a lot of great benefits to having raised garden beds. Pest control, soil management, and aesthetics are all good reasons to go through the trouble of installing DIY-raised garden beds. Keeping our homestead debt-free means doing what we can with what we have, so we built our DIY raised garden beds out of the materials we had on hand!

We started with 2×6’s cut to length, and built them into 4 foot by 7 foot rectangles using simple butt joints and screws.  We repeated the process once more with 2×6’s and twice more with 2×4’s. We stacked the frames 2×6’s under 2×4’s and cut 4×4 posts to fit for corner supports. Then two 2×4 braces in the center of each long side of the frame. We then secured all braces with screws. 

After the frames for our raised garden beds were assembled, we cut 2×4’s to sit perpendicular to the frame and form a small ledge. After we assembled the raised garden beds in the barn we put them in place with the tractor. We put our beds on baserock so we felt we did not need anything to line the bottom. If you chose to use raised garden beds to protect your crops from underground pests like moles you may want to lay chicken wire before you add your soil.

Raised Garden Bed Ideas

A lot of thought went into our raised garden beds. Once we decided that raised garden beds were the way for us to go, we kicked around a lot of ideas. Ultimately though, we wanted to use what we have and incorporate it into our landscaping.

We just so happened to have extra wood and plenty of land to make it all work. If you are short on materials or space your raised garden bed ideas will have to be a little different. You may have to have narrower boxes or build yours in steps to fit the lay of your land. You may not have extra wood on hand, but an old metal trough or even Ikea bags can work!

Raised Garden Bed Kit

DIY-raised garden beds may not be for everyone. It takes tools, handyman skills, time, and some elbow grease. There is nothing wrong with being short on any one or all of these. If that’s the case though, a raised garden bed kit might be best for you.

Amazon has a wide variety of raised garden bed kits to choose from to fit any garden size and budget. A plastic kit like this one is small enough to fit in most spaces and at a reasonable price. If you have a larger garden and a larger budget, this U shaped wooden kit might be more your speed. If you want your raised garden beds to be as pretty as they are practical, this galvanized metal raised garden bed is sure to look good with any garden decor.

What’s Next?

The raised garden beds are just another piece of the puzzle. Next, we will be making DIY garden trellis out of some old wood and cattle panels that we have on the homestead. So make sure to come back and see more DIY and budget-friendly projects.

Please keep asking us questions. We love providing you with answers and learning ourselves!

Hugs,

Christina & Trevor