Simple Inexpensive Raised Garden Beds

Mar 21

Soil, soil, soil.

When we moved into our new construction home 6 years ago I knew gardening in our depleted clay soil was not an option for me. I needed and inexpensive garden bed option stat! After a little research I came upon the idea of using fence pickets for affordable raised beds.

THE MATERIALS

Fence pickets
1x's or whatever scrap pieces you have laying around
L brackets
Screws
Drill
Saw, hand or electric works here
Weed barrier
Dirt and compost

How to build the garden beds.

I wanted rectangle raised beds so I cut two pickets in half for the shorter ends and left the long pieces intact. I used 1x's that I had laying around for supports and spaced them out evenly along the length of the two side pieces. So then I used L brackets to connect the pieces at the corners. Make sure your screws don't go all the way through the back.

Finish it up

You can staple weed barrier across the bottom of the boxes if you so desire. We did and it didn't help that much with the weeds, and honestly doesn't last that long. I think if you dug out my boxes there would be very little weed barrier left. Therefore if your budge is tight I say skip the weed barrier. If you are out in your garden at least every other day it's not hard to keep weeds at bay manually.

Choose your soil and seeds

I use a mixture of raised bed soil, compost, and fall leaves that I go collect from other peoples yards each fall. Yes, I do that. Yes, people think I'm crazy. It's fine. For seeds, I like to use a combination of the zinnia mix from Dollar Tree and some giant zinnia seeds so I have mixed sizes for really nice full arrangements.

Happy Gardening!
Melinda

OTHER POSTS YOU MAY ENJOY