Hi everyone,
This is my first time gardening, and I’m starting small with a backyard setup. I built a raised bed that’s 3 ft x 7 ft and about 11 inches high. Right now, it has ground soil as a base, and I’m planning to top it off with raised bed soil.
My goal is to grow tomatoes and cucumbers, along with a few other vegetable. I will buy the seedlings rather than seeds.
I’d really appreciate any advice or suggestions, especially on soil setup, spacing, or anything I should watch out for as a beginner.
by Exiled-human
19 Comments
Looks good, but I would fill that bed up to the brim to give your plants as much root-space as possible.
nice DIY😊
花壇が大きいから奥の株のお手入れが大変そう💦
If you happen to have any more wood that you used for the side support stakes, do one more in the center. Wet soil pressure can warp even thicker pressure treated fairly quickly.
Looks great, but as another commenter said, fill it to the top. It’ll settle at least a couple of inches so you want it to look almost too full at first.
One tip. Don’t buy cucumber starts. They don’t like being transplanted and they are so unbelievably easy to grow from seed. They grow a deep tap root pretty quickly and a small starter pot hinders that. You can literally just stick a couple seeds in the ground, keep them moist, and in about a week you’ll have a cucumber plant popping up. You can get a pack of seeds for less than $5 and it’ll last you a few years. One single plant start is often $5 at the big box stores.
I also suggest growing a parthenocarpic variety. This is a fancy word that just means they grow fruit even if they aren’t pollinated by an insect. I grew Beit Alpha and Muncher varieties for the first time last year and I’ll never go back to regular pollinated cukes. I had 6 plants and even after eating them almost daily and making a ton of pickles, I still had to give a bunch away. If you just Google this term you’ll find a bunch of options, online and in stores near you. I see a pack for only $2.50 at Walmart and it probably has 25+ seeds. When you eat that first small cucumber (because it’s so hard to wait till it’s big enough!) you’ll feel so good about the fact that you stuck a little seed in the ground and grew it all by yourself. That feeling is what keeps so many of us doing this year after year. It is such a rewarding, if sometimes frustrating and disheartening, hobby.
Sorry, I could go on and on lol. One final tip about spacing. That isn’t a huge amount of space, but you can still grow a good amount in it. I use square foot gardening in my raised beds, and I squeeze 6 tomatoes into a bed that should probably only hold 4. I grow vertically on a homemade trellis and prune pretty heavily, but it allows me to grow a bunch of varieties and experiment every year. Square food gardening makes the most use of the small space you have. It does requires a little more work, but not much. You may have to water a little more frequently, especially once the plants are at a good size and drinking a lot. You might also have to fertilize a little heavier, but again that’s not a huge deal. Again if you Google this you’ll find a ton of info and spacing guides.
I lied, one final tip haha. I’m 36 and have been gardening literally all my life, first with my dad and now at my own house with my own kids. I still learn something new every single season. YouTube has a taught me a **ton** but you’ve gotta weed out the bullshit, because there’s lots of it. I highly recommend the channel Gardening in Canada. Ashley is a soil scientist and I’ve learned so much from her. She gives great advice, especially for newbies, and she explains the science behind everything. Good luck in your gardening journey! The best way to learn is to just do it. You’ll have successes and failures. I’ve literally cried when disease took out my entire cucumber crop virtually overnight. But the good far outweighs the bad. Ok, sorry for the novel lol. Feel free to DM with any questions. Clearly I love to talk 🤣.
Oh man you’re plays are gonna go ballistic with that soil. I used that stuff in my raised bed and the first year yield was insane. Like, couldn’t give the stuff away fast enough insane. Enjoy the fruits of your labor, and don’t over crowd the bed.
Also, you’re gonna be mad you didn’t leave a foot or so behind the bed to walk around it, but it’s not the end of the world.
I’m far from a pro but I’m on my third year of very similar garden beds! It looks like you might have some clay underneath (same as me). I was worried about everything staying super waterlogged and compacted if water couldn’t effectively drain into the ground under the bed so the first year I added a layer of sticks, leaves, and brush to the bottom of the bed then and added perlite along with other add-ins (compost, worm castings) to that same organic miracle grow soil to fill the rest in. This year I just topped up the soil with a mix of the organic miracle grow and Bumper Crop Organic Gardener’s Gold Potting Soil which has perlite, sphagnum moss, and some other stuff. We’ll see how it works! If you find that the soil is getting too compacted or staying too wet you might want to mix something in to lighten the soil
Put twigs and leaves at the bottom and then the soil on top all the way to the top. The twigs and leaves will hold moisture and break down.
Hey quick question: the wood looks kinda greenish to me, maybe I’m wrong, but is this pressure treated wood? Pressure treated wood is toxic and can cause cancer. If you build something to grow food in, use untreated wood.
Did you line it with 1/4 inch deer wire first? If not you could have mice, moles and voles dig into your bed. I learned the hard way
I put 90° galvanized brackets on each corner. The screws inevitably pull out of the ends of the boards as they decay. Screwing into the face of the boards holds up longer.
Well I understand why people put beds against fences and side of house, it kinda makes sense to look at because it fits in neatly but it’s not functional at all. You want to be able to walk all the way around the bed, so you need to leave space between bed and next boundary. How much? Well generally enough for a mower or wheelbarrow to comfortable fit. So like 3 ft spacing all the way around the bed
Filllllllll that thing full.
I would put dimpler membrane on the sides to make the wood last longer. Wet soil in contact with wood = not good.
FYI, Costco has the big raised bed soil bags with compost for $9. My neighbor came over asking about the soil I’m using because our plants are loving it.
The shadow makes you think you’re standing on the south side of your bed. I would plant taller crops toward the back and shorter crops close to where you’re standing.
I think its a good start. But I would pull the dirt back from the corners in the inside and screw in a support brace in each corner. As the wood warps with water, time, and such the corners will want to pull away from each other.
Also with all the money your spending on bags of soil, to fill it to the brim, if you have a truck or access to one, I found it easier and cheaper to just get compost and topsoil by the 1/2 yard or yard. Like $15 a yard. Just Google “compost in bulk near me”
This bed might pull apart at the corners. It would need more reinforcement.
Hopefully that’s untreated wood. Don’t want to grow food in treated wood but it wouldbbe fine for flowers.
I just built pretty much the same bed. Here’s what I’d recommend:
– cut 4x4s to height and fasten them to the inside corners
– layer of card board across the inside bottom
– layer of sticks/logs etc
– fill to the top with raised bed mix (all the way to the top)