Raised beds are everywhere right now.
And if you watch gardening content online, you’d think you NEED them to grow food successfully.
But are raised beds actually better… or are they just overhyped?
🪴 Check out the Vego raised beds I use in my garden: https://shop.nextlevelgardening.tv/products/17-tall-10-in-1-jumbo-modular-metal-raised-garden-bed-kit?variant=52980158038332
After gardening for more than 30 years, I’ve learned the answer is a lot more nuanced than most people admit.
In this video, I’m breaking down the real pros and cons of raised bed gardening:
I’ll also tackle some common myths—like whether metal raised beds get too hot—and explain why raised beds do NOT automatically make you a better gardener.
The truth? Raised beds can be amazing… but only if they solve a problem in YOUR garden.
🌱 If you’re deciding whether to build raised beds, watch this first.
Website: NextLevelGardening.tv
Thanks for watching, and happy gardening!
CHAPTERS
0:00 Raised Beds: Better or Overrated?
0:40 Drainage Benefits
1:20 Soil Control
1:53 Easier on Your Body
2:15 Gopher & Pest Protection
2:46 Organization & Aesthetics
4:18 Weed Control
4:37 The Raised Bed Myth
5:00 Cost of Raised Beds
5:48 Watering Problems
6:14 Metal Beds & Heat
7:12 Biggest Misconception
7:47 When In-Ground Is Better
8:11 Are Raised Beds Worth It?
9:08 Raised Bed Mistakes
45 Comments
Raised beds help with excess water with improved drainage in the Spring. But, in the Summer, I do a lot of watering.
Aesthetics. All about keeping up with the peers. Make the hipster whiskers twitch.
Gotta have that home brew. Gotta have your own yeast culture that you named. Gotta drink kombucha tea and coffee. Chicken tractor and two goats on a 1/2 acre lot. Farm worms in your 12 stage compost facility. Spend $5k a year zoning a "rewilded", "native" polyculture on that 1/2 acre lot. Indoor mushroom grow tent…..
I grow on gravel, and use grow bags. Walmart had a 4x2x1 for $26 and I was looking to move my strawberries to the ground and I think it's perfect for my garden, plus my knees won't let me get down on the ground and back up again.
They're convenient and handy on my deck. But it's really more about the bending convenience the ability to control soil, simpler to control pests, weeds and shade and light. So yes, I like the right one in the right use case but I think grow bags offer a lot of the benefits at a lower cost.
Bottom line is America is insanely wealthy so raised beds make sense in a lot of cases for a lot of people.
At 75 years old my raised beds make gardening possible even though my ground soil is excellent. But I can't get on my knees so the raised garden allows me to still do what I love, gardening. However, it is very expensive as i have to purchase bagged soil. Still I love my raised garden and it looks so nice I just go out to look at it and am filled with wonder and joy! God bless and thanks for a great video about raised gardens.
Live in the driftless area of SW Wisconsin, the dirt is black and I've been planting directly into the ground for 5 decades. I'll just keep it in the ground and deal with the few bug and mole problems that are easily managed on my part
My raised bed have been installed for 15 years. Colorado weather isn’t easy on them, and next year are due for replacement. But they are made out of hardie board concrete siding so they have a wood look. Also have beds in the ground they both do well but have been amended.
exactly right ❤ before i started my food forest, i took the time to eliminate all invasive weeds and built up the soil. now, i can easily manage the few weeds that blow in and have outstanding soil which i built with free resources. i do grow some things in mounds and that is the extent of my raised bed! i built my food forest with mostly free reused materials and it generates 90% of my food. you do not have to spend a ton of money to grow your own food.
You only need beds built from pressure treated 2x8s. Anymore than that is not needed. The main reason is to reduce weeds.
I am moving to raised beds simply because I'm getting on up there in years and can't deal with bending over or kneeling like I used to. It's much easier on my back and legs having my gardens a little higher.
Planting into the ground out of fashion now or what?
We live in the high desert of Southern California. I had a small garden in our lower yard but lost so many plants to gophers, ground squirrels and rabbits. Tried electric netting around the garden which help with exception of the gophers. We lost our lawn in the backyard during the drought. I thought it would be a great place to do raised beds. Started with 3 and now have 6. Put hardware cloth under each and ordered bulk delivery of vegi mix to fill
I love my vego beds … I have to save my money to buy them though
Raised beds are overhyped if you like ground pest damage, excessive weed growth, and crawling around on the ground.
I bought one of those corrugated metal beds this year (I didn't pay much for it, $60 and I filled 75% of it with free local soil left over from electric lines being put in next to me) and it's been great. Glad I bought it.
You can’t make money telling people to plant in dirt. You can make money selling bags and bags of organic matter and perlite that has no soil in it. Most of these “soils” compact and degrade over time anyway. My “soil” is a thin layer of top soil and poetry level clay underneath. I simply mounded up compost, mixed it in, and planted into it. That few inch mound increases drainage significantly.
It's hype to not want your plants eaten by rabbits?
when they bury utilities 3" from the surface, its a necessity
My soil where I live is excellent. About 60% of our days are cloudy and we get about 1/2 inch of rainfall every week on years with high sunspot activity. I've always grown in ground. I use weed cloth between rows to cut down on weeding. That said, now I'm getting older it is getting harder to garden at ground level. I bought a railed kneeling pad for that. I can push off with the rails to get up and I can turn the pad over and use it as a stool. I have switched root crops to containers. I have 25 gallon containers that I grow my carrots, potatoes, and beets in. Harvesting is thinning when I need to and at the end of the season dumping the container on to a tarp and sorting through, add this years egg shells and coffee grounds and last years fall leaves that have been cooking in a metal trash can all summer and put it back in the container. Last years egg shells, coffee grounds, and leaves are next year's nitrogen and calcium. I add a little bone meal and fish fertilizer next year and the containers go crazy.
I started using them this year, as Ive gotten older, ive found its really painful to squat /bending over! Love them!
Raised bed required no
nice to have yes
Kneeling down/bending over is over rated.
I garden in raised beds, huge pots, and in-ground because each section is different. One section of my yard has 1 foot of soil above a concrete pad. Evidently soil was trucked in some time in the past. So raised beds are a necessity in that area. I built them with wood and an overhead structure providing hail protection.
Then I have a metal raised bed for my hot peppers. I shopped around and found a great price for a quality raised bed. I put old limbs and yard waste at the bottom, then added a combo of soils, pete moss, and compost. After a few years it is the best bed, yet and my peppers thrive there.
I have another section where I dug down 1 1/2 feet and buried yard waste, food waste, ground egg shells, coffee grinds, etc, then covered it back up. It has been the most fertile ground bed in my garden. Anything I plant there simply thrives.
Another section I built up from the ground using soil that came out of trenches. First year I planted tomatoes that were just ok, following year it was a failed potato patch. Last year I planted okras which were abundant and huge. It takes time to get the soil amended right when it comes from an area that wasn't growing anything before. Now it's full of worms, so this year I'm planting okra and potatoes.
I purchased three raised Bed this past fall and I am loving them. My native soil is full of rocks you can't even dig in it. Thinking of getting more for other areas on my property.
My yard floods during heavy rain and i have a hard time getting down on the ground. 2 reasons I've spent THOUSANDS of dollars on raised beds and containers.
Raised beds are awesome! They provide control and great conditions with the right care.
Not everyone wants or needs a raised bed. They are great for many reasons.
This year I upgraded my primary growing area from a 20+ year old pair of essentially in-ground wedge shaped beds surrounded by dg that had seen way better days. I elected to re-do the area replacing the DG and beds with new DG and 2 13 foot Birdie beds, one for lean & low grown tomatoes and the other for other types of veggies including a full length trellis for cukes and kabocha. I also added a new pathway in the greater part of my yard. What a radical change. I've planted the best garden, to date, ever. It looks darn near professional. I'm so pleased with how it's turned out and actually invite people to have a look.Everything looks so happy!
I HAD to use raised beds because the maple tree roots were stealing all the water! And I mean RAISED beds. Mine are up on a 6 inch high layer of retaining wall blocks! Half my back yard has tree roots right at the surface. Roots grew right up into normal raised beds. I nailed a fine mesh wire screen across the bottom of the frames to keep dirt from falling out. Then put 2 layers of weed barrier fabric on that. My crop this year is better than ever. Part of the back yard and nearly all of the front yard are suitable for inground so that's what I do there. I have wonderful soil that doesn't have rocks and drains great.
I have a combination of both and it works out great
Keeps some dogs out of the garden lol jk
People should use hardware cloth if they're spending that kind of money.
Hardware cloth will keep moles out…
❤
I live in north Florida. I have a bunch of raised beds, green stalks and containers, as well as one large in ground garden. The in ground garden sucks. No matter how much I amend it each year, the sand here just sucks the compost and fertilizer into the center of the earth and turns right back into a beach. I have to water and fertilize the ground bed wayyyyy more than the raised beds.
I live on a water table so really don't have much choice, do raised beds and hugulkultur.
It’s called procrastination…”I’ll get to that later”
I went back to mounds
My soil is clay-based and full of shale rock fragments thanks to the geological history of the Lake Erie area. It's easier to build up a good soil layer on top than dig down and fight what's all below.
I just made 2 raised beds $0 i guess if i bought the material it would be like $50 each 7ft x 2ft x 18in T. i have wonderful sand for dirt … i really don't like bending over . I won't need to buy buy dirt as it also composts like 400 lb of leaves each. It will be nutrient rich for at least 5 years. It self waters everyday from the morning dew off the roof.
One might think that is a lot of leaves …its been 2 weeks since i made them and all the leave are back. I may use one of them to build a berm along my driveway with how many leaves and sticks i have (500 trees)
#3 and #5 here. 👋 Changing to elevated beds (69 y.o.) and ditching the messiness this fall. Two birds with one bed sort to speak.
Lol good. From the headline I thought you were going to say they are terrible. All the points you made are spot on. I just would like to have the time to work it as I should.
I have concrete sand And I just pile chicken poo and wood chips for a fee months then everything grows like magic
Absolutely agree that aesthetics is important in gardening and I see it in my own yard/habits
After growing my garden in ground for twenty years, I switched to raised beds and its so much better. I can control nutrients better, less weed hassle, etc. I still grow my giant pumpkins in ground though
I don't have space for raised beds but I had them in my previous garden. Just by having raised beds my yard felt and looked more organized. Now I have Greenstalks which are NOT much cheaper, I bought them in stages, just like I did in my previous garden. I do have things in pots tucked here and there.
I just use hugelkultur beds.
I have several beds that are lowered below grade. They do better than anything I have tried. Late summer when temps are very high I believe these beds keep moisture better and plants benefit from it. I dig them out deep and place quality soil. My best plants ever, and I've been gardening for 50 + years. So raised beds aren't everything they are made out to be.
May I add to the list of critters wallabies and possums? Raised beds can definitely be a huge part of the solution, particularly for possums.