Flat Beds or Raised Beds?

The conventional method of getting a garden started was to get yourself a big rototiller and till a nice square in your backyard. Then get some organic matter such as spent mushroom soil or some other form of compost and mix it in. You can use planks, bricks, or just straw to make walkways for navigating your garden so you won't walk on the actual beds and compact the soil. The advantages of this conventional method are:

• No need to build boxes
• Ground retains water better in dry summer months

Raised bed gardening however offers benefits that more than payoff the up-front work. Once you get the hang of it making a garden box from scratch is not that difficult. I recommend using cedar wood which, although a bit pricey, will hold up over the years much better than softer wood. Although treated wood is not as toxic as it once was, I prefer not to take chances. In my view if you’re going to grow your own food it should be as close to organic as possible.

Boxes should be no larger than seven or eight feet long so they don’t bow from the weight of the soil and no wider than three or four feet so everything can be reached without climbing into the bed. Lowes and Home Depot sell cedar at a reasonable price but the planks are only 5-6 inches wide so I usually double them up to make the boxes 11-12 inches deep. You will need a circular saw for cutting the wood to the desired size and a power drill/screw-driver to assemble the box with galvanized screws. I use cedar 4x4’s for the corners but you can probably get away with 2x4’s. Here is what one of my boxes looks like:

If this seems all too much for you go online and search for pre-made garden boxes which require much less work to assemble. It will cost more and may not be as sturdy but it is easier.

So why go through all the trouble of building boxes you may ask? Here are some advantages:

• Ground heats quickly in the Spring giving you a head start
• Drainage is great so you never need to worry about too much rain causing root rot
• You have complete control over your soil content making it easier to control weeds
• Since everything is elevated it makes harvesting and garden maintenance easier
• Soil remains loose and workable making it easier to get started in the spring. Tilling is optional.

The only disadvantage I can think of is the ground dries out more in the summer so a little extra watering may be required. Proper mulching alleviates that problem which I’ll talk about later. I’ll also go over options on putting the whole garden together and what options you may consider for walkways.