Raised Garden Beds 101
By: Wesley Sexton, Client Relationship Manager
If you are tired of mowing grass and would like to use your yard to grow fruits and vegetables, raised beds can be an excellent option.
Raised vegetable gardening is an incredibly popular method of food production because it offers homeowners a number of benefits over in-ground gardening.
In this post, we’ll discuss a few of those benefits and share some considerations to keep in mind if you are interested in installing your own raised beds.
An Our Land Organics landscape design that includes metal raised garden beds for edible gardening
The Benefits of Raised Garden Beds
No need for tilling. In addition to the time and labor involved, tilling disturbs communities of bacteria and microorganisms living in the soil and releases a large amount of Carbon in the process. Skipping this process is a big win!
Start growing in healthy soil faster. Building healthy soil can be an expensive and time-consuming process including soil testing, tilling, and multiple rounds of amendment application. Raised bed gardens, on the other hand, allow a gardener to bypass that entire process and start fresh with new soil.
Avoid heavy metals and other toxins often found in local soils. Especially in urban areas, on-site soils have often been exposed to a number of contaminants due to construction, leaching, or other factors. A raised garden bed allows you to start fresh.
Minimize weed pressure. Raised bed gardens allow you to avoid encroachment from lawn grass and prevent your vegetable patch from being reclaimed by your lawn.
Better access/less bending over. For anyone with mobility issues or an achy back, raised beds can make tending to your plants easier and more comfortable.
This raised bed garden, which was designed and installed by Our Land Organics, utilizes 4x4 cedar. The layout is designed to prevent deer from trying to get it in. Deer won’t jump into a space unless they feel confident they have enough area to land. In this garden the layout prevents them from having that space.
Considerations for Raised Bed Gardening
Before you install raised garden beds, it’s a good idea to consider the following.
Irrigation. It’s important to consider watering methods before constructing and installing your raised beds. We love drip irrigation systems for their efficiency and their ability to be hooked up to rain barrels. Keep in mind, as well, that many irrigation systems need to be winterized each year.
Wood material. Pressure-treated lumber is pumped full of a number of chemicals that may leach into your raised bed soil, so we recommend using natural, untreated materials. For durability and longevity, cedar can’t be beat. They aren’t bad to look at either.
Fencing (deer protection). For all the work you’ll be putting into your raised vegetable garden, be sure critters don’t beat you to the harvest. Most experts recommend at least an 8-foot fence if you plan to keep deer away. The layout of the raised garden beds can also prevent deer from wanting to risk jumping in. Rabbits can be deterred with a much shorter fence.
What to Plant in Raised Bed Gardens
When planning your vegetable garden, be sure you know what hardiness zone you live in. That will affect the types of vegetables you can grow, as well as when you plant them. The Cincinnati region is generally in hardiness zone 6.
In general, we recommend focusing on continually harvestable plants instead of labor-intensive, single-harvest plants. This will help you get the most out of your garden all season long.
Some of our favorites are:
Kale
Peas
Peppers
Spinach
Tomatoes
Eggplant