A Raised Bed Recipe

Wondering how we’re building our garden beds? Here are some simple instructions for a 4x8 raised bed:

For one raised bed, you’ll need: three boards (untreated wood is best) sized 2”x6”x8’, 3.5” drill screws, a drill, a hand or power saw and a tape measure.

The first thing to do is cut one board in half (into two 4” long boards). This creates the ends of your raised bed. Next, place all your boards together, forming the shape of the raised bed, and mark each corner for three evenly spaced screws. The outer screws should be no closer than ¾ of an inch from the top or bottom of the board. Then, with someone supporting the boards and holding them flush against one another, drill the screws into the boards on all four corners.  Now that you’ve built your raised bed ( -that was easy enough, right?), you’ll need to prepare your site in the garden. We did this by placing the bed where we wanted it, marking the edges, and then digging a shallow trench (of just a few inches) for the bed to “sit” in. Once you’ve finished the trench, place the bed in its permanent position and then began preparing the soil. You’ll want to loosen and/or till the soil that the raised bed is sitting on. You can do this as simply by rotating a pitchfork in the soil to loosen the dirt. This will allow your plants to develop deeper and stronger root structures. Next, if you choose, you can line your raised bed with newspaper (think the sports pages, not those shiny advertisements) to deter any weeds that you may have just stirred up from popping through. Finally, fill your raised bed with a soil that contained a great composition of nutrients.

This raised bed is fairly basic, but we’ve found that 4x8 proves a workable space and is accessible to gardeners working from both sides (with a pad or something to kneel on).

We hope this helps and happy gardening!