A "How To" for Building Raised Beds

[VGary]

My wife sent this link to me and I am pleased to pass along for your information. Enjoy and Happy Gardening to us all!
Gary

http://thepioneerwoman.com/homeandga...vegetable-bed/

[fortyonenorth]

...and she cooks, too.

[RDUN]

My wife LOVES the Pioneer Woman! And I can't complain because she has some darn good recipes on her site. I have to admit, I even get a kick out of some of her posts as well.... Seems to be a very talented lady.

[b54red]

One thing that I would do differently is to put the support stakes on the outside of the bed so that when tilling inside the beds the tiller blades don't hit them. It might not look quite as neat but it will save time when tilling and the support stakes will hold up longer. I would also use much heavier stakes because of the force exerted by the swelling and drying of the main boards is very powerful and can actually break the steaks if they are firmly attached.

[SmartAlex]

Great site! Thanks for the link.

On my last two beds, I used pressure treated 2" X 12" lumber. Todays pressure treated lumber is treated with copper sulphide and is totally safe. I used galvanized steel corner brackets with the screws driven into the brackets and wood at each corner on the inside of the frame instead of the outside. The root crops like carrots seem to appreciate the deeper beds.

Ted

[platys]

My sister used her directions to create her raised bed, and was happy with them. My husband loves her recipes - I think he and my sis read her blog more than I do.

[huntoften]

Ummm...Ree Drummond...the Pioneer Woman...makes it WAY too complicated.

Check out my blog for a simpler way to do this: RAISED BEDS MADE EASY

Just an FYI...The Pioneer woman is extremely wealthy, has hired house keepers and landscapers to do most of her work. She married into one of the wealthiest families in Oklahoma.

[RDUN]

Just an FYI...The Pioneer woman is extremely wealthy, has hired house keepers and landscapers to do most of her work. She married into one of the wealthiest families in Oklahoma.

I believe what you said above is all true...BUT... she has created a hugely popular blog based on HER talents that would comfortably support her family apart from the wealth she married into.

I would agree with you that her raised bed methods have room for improvement.

[Too Tall Toms]

This looks simple enough that even a tool tard like me can do it.

[Alpinejs]

I find a major flaw in her plans and the one from Huntoften doesn't specify. I don't have
any phillips or flat head screws in my tool room here or in Canada. THEY ARE NOT ALLOWED!! I have only square drive or star drive screws and feel the others should be
outlawed as they strip out easily. The latter two can be driven right on through a 2X4 and
they won't strip out. I know.....picky, picky, but when far superior products are available,
recommend them.

[Alpinejs]

Am I the only one like this. In looking at the pic of Huntoften's framed raised bed w/o the
dirt, I get heart palpitations. I don't know why, but I just love the idea of creating/mixing
my own soil to my specifications. I guess I experience some of the excitement that
farmers in the Red River Valley of MN/ND would experience when the soil was first turned in' the spring. They would almost get teery eyed and claimed they could smell it. My
formula keeps changing, but, good or bad, it is my potion, my dirt, my soil and my joy.
Here in the San Diego area, the soil companies sell what they call Lakeside loam. That is
a major ingredient (like flour for a cake), hefty doses of composted manure,, bone meal,
crushed oyster shells, perlite, vermiculite and then variables depending on crops. Yeah, I
mix it all with a shovel in that I LOVE to play in it. Hey, there is nothing wrong with me that a good shrink can't fix.

[Too Tall Toms]

I'm wondering what you do if there's a gap at one end of the bed....like the one in her pictures. The one end of it doesn't sit flush with the ground.

This is a photo of three of my eight raised beds. The tall T stakes hold my tomato plants up similar to the Florida weave method.



Some of my beds are constructed with pressure treated landscape timbers held together with long spikes. The others are constructed of 2" X 12" pressure treated lumber with steel brackets holding them together at the corners. (chemicals currently used for pressure treating wood is not environmentally harmful. Since it is primarily a copper solution, I am happy if it leaches from the wood into the soil.)

After constructing the frames, I use a carpenters level and small stones under them to level them. Since my land slopes toward a large lake, one end of each bed is always higher after leveling. When the soil fills the beds, it seals the raised end without a problem.

I always enjoy reworking the soil in my beds each winter. I don't design the soil to support plant life. My soil amendments are more intended to support a good earth worm population. I've always believed that soil which supports earth worms well, will also support plant growth well. My soil mixture is probably 50% topsoil with the remainder being compost and other organics. I use a lot of alfalfa pellets added to the soil each winter and mixed thoroughly. By the end of a growing season, most of the organics have been consumed by the earth worms and plants and the soil levels have dropped by two or three inches in each bed. This provides room to add the additional organics to each bed in the fall.

I once let someone convince me to simply add the organics to the top of each bed and let the nutrients percolate down through the soil. This method resulted in stratophied beds with organics on top and mud at the bottom. I now mix the new organics into the soil each fall. The earth worms seem to prefer the thorough mixing.

I don't know if my methods agree with the experts, but it works for me.

Ted

[Too Tall Toms]

That looks good.

How tall are those fence posts??