Raised Bed Gardening Articles | Gardening

By: Nigel Grimshaw

Raised Bed Gardening

Raised garden beds have a lot of advantages over conventional in ground garden beds, the main advantages being height so less bending, perfect for older people and wheelchair users.

In addition if you do not have any decent soil or your land is very rocky or even sand.

The other advantage is that the soil you use can be very rich in nutrients, and roots will not be constricted all ensuring healthy plants.

Over time the soil can become poor and this due to the nutrients being washed away over time, however adding new soil and compost will ensure that your raised bed will be in perfect health.

Materials:-

Raised beds can be built from treated timber, bricks, railway sleepers and even tyres make wonderful beds for growing vegetable in for the eco gardeners out there.

If you use reclaimed railway sleepers your raised beds will have character as well as being very sturdy, do take care with the weight of these and have plenty of strong people around.

Plastered brick built raised beds can be painted in any colour your heart desires and a whitewash will give you a great Mediterranean feel.

Brick Raised bed being built.

The completed Project incorporates a waterfall.

Things to remember..........

Do not forget some drainage holes at the bottom of the raised bed, and to add a layer of either broken bricks etc or large sized gravel to help drainage and so that the roots are not sitting in water.

It is advisable to line the inside of a raised bed made from timber, use a thick polythene sheet and simply staple it to the inside.

This should be done for brick built beds where an existing wall is used (see photos) as damage will be caused to the wall over a period of time.

Same Raised bed a year later.

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