Raised beds – huh? We’re talking about sideboards that hold dirt in place to make a raised garden bed. Raised beds are the fastest and easiest way to grow vegetables in high-performing soil.Great dirt might not sound sexy, but it’s REALLY important for growing those delicious, juicy tomatoes, plump peas, and perfect peppers.

Why raised bed vegetable gardens?

It’s the dirt! Great soil is the key to growing an abundant crop of vegetables. With the sideboards that raised beds provide, you can mix your own high-performing blend of soil and put it right on top of whatever inferior dirt (or even grass) may exist underneath. Wala – instant garden!

The veggies gardens have the option of the raised garden beds for the people. The people that grow them on timely basis will surely get god amount of the returns from the same. The method opted for the procedure must be right to get the favourable results.

Great soil is the key to growing an abundant crop of vegetables. With the sideboards that raised beds provide, you can mix your own high-performing blend of soil and put it right on top of whatever inferior dirt (or even grass) may exist underneath. Wala – instant garden! It’s really all about the dirt, but hey, here are some other benefits of raised bed gardens:

Raised bed gardens: Size

They can be small enough to fit gardens into little spaces and near the house. You can even have multiple vegetable garden areas — e.g., use one box in a less sunny area to grow lettuce/greens and another in full sun to grow tomatoes, peppers, and the like.

Easy to start and to maintain 

It’s less work to prepare the soil and less work to maintain a garden that is designed ‘square foot’ style, instead of growing in traditional rows. I rarely have to weed my vegetable garden because the plants are close enough to prevent most weeds from growing and because of starting with a relatively clean soil mix.

Accessible 

You can build raised garden beds as high as you want, making the plants and vegetables easier to access – even for those with physical disabilities.

Easy to add critter protection

If you live in an area where you need to protect against wildlife like deer and rabbits, it’s easy to add a fence or other protection to the garden boxes.

Portable

If you decide a location isn’t working well, you can always move the box to another area. We put bottoms on our initial boxes so we could move them around while putting in sidewalks. It was funny to move a box full of tomatoes and peas across the yard on a trolley.

How big?

Start small. Go with a 4′x4′ or two. You can always add on later.

Though Square Foot Gardening says to build 6″ high boxes, I like my 9″ high box better. I don’t have to worry about soil spilling out or heaping over when I top off with compost each year.

Unless you’re planting on top of areas with tree roots, build frames without bottoms.

If you’re putting the box against a wall or fence, make it only 2′ (or maybe 2.5′) deep so you can easily reach in to harvest vegetables or pull the occasional weed.

Build it or buy it?

The choice is yours. My husband built 4′x4′ boxes for me as a mother’s day gift one year — nice gift, honey. He’s pretty handy, and it took him about an hour to build two (but longer to gather the materials). It’s easy to build garden boxes. You can use wood you may have lying around — just avoid anything treated with chemicals.

The Square Foot Gardening book gives details to build one — or you can create your own method. Screws, posts to hold boards in place…lots of construction options. There are step-by-step instructions, including a materials list on Sunset — but beware of lots of advertisements there. Amazon.com also has some pretty cool corner joints that you can use with wood you get locally.

Or you can go for instant gratification and buy a raised bed kit for about $70 or more — depending on the style you choose. Eartheasy.com has a nice selection — more than 20 types, and you can even find some on Amazon.com.

Whichever path you take to defining your garden area, the time is now to get the garden ready for summer vegetables.