Best material for raised beds?????? - Page 2

Sodak · January 21, 2014

Quote:

Originally Posted by drew51

How far were the plants in the row? How many rows?
I have an 8x12, it is full of strawberries currently.
I should have made two 4x12's to reach across from either side. 4 feet width might be better?

4' width so that you can reach from either side works well. 4 x4 gives some more flexibility and can handle 4 groomed/staked or caged tomato plants.

TomatoDon · January 22, 2014

Drew, I just used the old standard to have the bed twice as wide as I could reach. I couldn't reach the middle if it were 8 feet wide. But I can, especially with caged tomatoes, reach to the middle of 5 foot wide bed.

I had two rows of three plants. I tried to not have them line up exactly, plant to plant, side to side. For example, on one row I'd start the first plant 12 inches from one end of the bed, and space them four feet apart. So, the spacing on that row would be 1 foot, 5 foot, and 9 foot. On the other row if would be reversed. That way you have the plants staggered, and each plant gets more sun and air circulation. I've tried to show that here in a diagram, but it never works, but I'll try it again.

I use cages that are 24" in diameter, so that works out well. Twelve inches from the end allows me to put the cage right up against one end of the bed, right in the corner. The plant goes right in the center of the cage, with 12 inches on both sides.

Four foot wide beds always seemed to be a little two narrow, but the five foot beds seem to be just about right.

Year One.......Row One:...... X..........X..........X
Year One.......Row Two............ X...........X........ X

Year Two................X..........X..........X
Year Two.......X...........X..........X

Five plants would probably be even better.

Year One.....Row One:........X.......... X........... X
Year One.....Row Two: ..............X........... X

Year Two.............X..........X........
Year Two........X..........X............X

(I had to add the dots between the X's to make the diagram keep the right spacing example.)

If you reverse the planting every year you never plant a tomato in the same hole two years in a row. This helps eliminate any kind of soil borne disease getting the roots. Plus, I usually add a fresh five gallon bucket of "new" organic soil to the planting hole each year anyway, which helps ever more.

I was asked here at T'ville last season about the bed I had in the back yard that produced well over 700 tomatoes from 6 plants. I plan to show that in more detail with pictures this year. I've never seen production beat it. The bed was approximately 24" tall, which seemed to make a difference.

drew51 · January 22, 2014

Thanks Don! Very cool! My bed was 12x 8 feet wide to grow corn, it is the minimal space required. It's better not to grow in raised beds, but I did anyway. That was my thinking for 8 feet. I'll use a plank across the bed to walk on for other crops. Currently strawberries are there and will be there for a few years, but may grow tomatoes in it, in the future. And when I move I will copy your 5 foot wide beds (moving in about 5 years). The width makes sense to me now.
I'm not as concerned about the depth, mine are open on the bottom, and the native soil is decent. The raised beds are more to keep the dog out as it was easy to train him not to go into the beds. I have not been able to keep him out of in ground plantings, he doesn't get it? But the defined bed he understands, and does stay out. Plus it's easy to net, and other reasons.
I may try deeper beds in the future. A friend has 4 foot deep beds. But the bottom is sealed. They are off the ground.

I also use the 4x4 raised beds for blueberries to control soil PH. Blueberries are shallow rooted plants so there too, 12 inches is fine. They will never grow that far down.

b54red · January 23, 2014

My beds are all 4 ft. wide and they worked great until I got older. Age and arthritis can make reaching the center of a 4 ft. bed quite difficult and tiring. I wish now I had made them 40 inches or 42 inches. That little bit of difference would make reaching the center much easier. It is only a big problem when trying to set out plants in the center of the beds or harvesting something like spinach or beans that are in the center.

For some crops having a wider bed works better and for others a narrower bed would be better. One mistake you shouldn't make is not leaving enough room between the beds. I made that mistake and have really regretted it.

Bill

Worth1 · January 23, 2014

12' x 3' is optimum, with 5 12 foot boards you can make 2 raised beds with nothing but sawdust left over.

I made mine 12 x 4 and it is a pain in the back to reach into the middle and I'm not that old.
Always try to design your projects so you have a minimum of scraps and around common lengths.
I have no problem using treated lumber.
The best materials for them is what you can afford.
If they are to be seen by the public make them aesthetically pleasing to the eyes.
Put down barriers on the bottom before you fill them to keep out tree roots.
Optimum would be to put them on concrete slabs.

Making the slabs at least 4 feet longer and wider than the beds.
This would keep out grass and the tree roots.

Use sections of 4x4 posts in all corners to attach the screws or better lag bolts with washers.
Drill holes in the first board your fastener goes through a fraction larger than the bolt diameter.
Drill the hole the bolt screws into smaller the the screw diameter.
Pre-drill all holes before assembly on a saw horse to save your back.
Use a combination square or some other type of device to make all connections even and centered.

Lag bolt.

It is done, 'including me, but considered poor constitution practice to nail or screw into end grain.

Look at your boards and see which way they will warp, put the crown out.
Trim all boards so they are the same length and square.
They do not come square from the store.

These are some of the things I do, I'm not saying they are the only way but it is simply what I do.

Worth

Cole_Robbie · January 23, 2014

Your lag bolt pic reminds me of my Ridgid 18v impact driver that is I think my favorite tool. It drives lag bolts like a beast.

Most people I meet don't understand the difference between the drill and the impact driver. Drills are for drilling holes; drivers are for driving screws. Failure to follow your advice about drilling the correct pilot holes is how a typical cordless drill dies. Drills are not meant for driving deck screws and lag bolts (without a good pilot hole), whereas impact drivers can do it with ease and with very little wear on the tool.

drew51 · January 23, 2014

Well my drill has settings for screws and drilling. I have drilled through steel with it. And it is small. Buy a good brand of drill with the strongest battery available. I also did go into the ends, but they are not falling down. I'm not building a house. One is 8x 12 and another is 25 inches by 24 feet. They are fine! Impact drills are for masonary and concrete you certainly don't need one for wood. I don't drill pilot holes either unless I'm using wood other than pine.
So i disagree with a lot of the advice I do agree you need pilot holes for lag bolts, but man that is way overkill. Just put in 3.5 inch deck screws. it's not going anywhere! If it was a shed that was going to hold thousands of pounds, then certainly lag bolts are needed. The advice about the 4x4 corner piece is probably a good idea. But it will work without one. I would suggest using one, but I didn't.
I have a Dewalt DCD780 drill/driver with 20 volt battery. It will drive a 3.5 inch deck screw into pine in 2.5 seconds or less. Like cutting butter with a hot knife! The drill is most certainly made to drive deck screws.
Use star not phillip heads bTW, they never slip!! If they even sell phillip heads anymore?

Worth1 · January 23, 2014

I thought I put a disclaimer in my post so I wouldn't get beat up.

Like I said it is just what I do.
Putting other peoples ideas down shows insecurity.

An impact driver is for bolts I use one all of the time at work to get into explosion proof ★★★★★★★★ boxes that have about 50 bolts.

A hammer drill is for concrete drilling.
The good ones run off of 120 volts and I have used many of them at where I used to work.
The big one I used was a spline drive and had attachments for A taper bits and SDS bits.

It is better to rent a good hammer drill than to buy a cheap one.

Worth

TomatoDon · January 23, 2014

Three feet wide is not wide enough for two rows. It's great for one row. I guess if you staggered them you could call it two rows, but however you do it you need to have plenty of room all the way around the plant. I could add two feet to the width and get twice the planting space than I could get in a 3 foot wide bed.
I used to have trouble bending over to reach the ground level of a 4 foot wide bed, but it never bothered me with tomatoes. When I stacked two 5 x 12 beds on top of each other last year it made it even easier. I can sit on the edge of the bed and reach anywhere.
We all have techniques that work best, and that's the one that works best for me.

Cole_Robbie · January 23, 2014

Just try a cordless impact driver sometime, and you will see what I mean. There is a reason they are so popular. I don't do anything without mine.

If you drive screws with a drill, make sure to put the little handle on the drill that clips on at a 90 degree angle so you can grip it before it twists sideways and sprains your wrist; impact drivers don't do that. Safety is really the best reason for choosing any one particular tool or technique, and it's the only reason I'm arguing. I have twisted my wrist like that before, and it's no fun at all.

Worth1 · January 23, 2014

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cole_Robbie

Just try a cordless impact driver sometime, and you will see what I mean. There is a reason they are so popular. I don't do anything without mine.

If you drive screws with a drill, make sure to put the little handle on the drill that clips on at a 90 degree angle so you can grip it before it twists sideways and sprains your wrist; impact drivers don't do that. Safety is really the best reason for choosing any one particular tool or technique, and it's the only reason I'm arguing. I have twisted my wrist like that before, and it's no fun at all.

I'm not arguing with you at all.

The impact driver we use at work is cordless.

As for the drill I have a cordless one and a Milwaukee hole shooter.

I loaned the one I have to someone, he was going to use a hole saw in it.
I tried to hand him the handle and he didn't want it.
I told him he really needed to use it and he went on about how he knew what he was doing.
The saw caught and the drill popped his thumb out of socket.

Worth

January 22, 2014	#17
TomatoDon Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: MS Posts: 1,523	Drew, I just used the old standard to have the bed twice as wide as I could reach. I couldn't reach the middle if it were 8 feet wide. But I can, especially with caged tomatoes, reach to the middle of 5 foot wide bed. I had two rows of three plants. I tried to not have them line up exactly, plant to plant, side to side. For example, on one row I'd start the first plant 12 inches from one end of the bed, and space them four feet apart. So, the spacing on that row would be 1 foot, 5 foot, and 9 foot. On the other row if would be reversed. That way you have the plants staggered, and each plant gets more sun and air circulation. I've tried to show that here in a diagram, but it never works, but I'll try it again. I use cages that are 24" in diameter, so that works out well. Twelve inches from the end allows me to put the cage right up against one end of the bed, right in the corner. The plant goes right in the center of the cage, with 12 inches on both sides. Four foot wide beds always seemed to be a little two narrow, but the five foot beds seem to be just about right. Year One.......Row One:...... X..........X..........X Year One.......Row Two............ X...........X........ X Year Two................X..........X..........X Year Two.......X...........X..........X Five plants would probably be even better. Year One.....Row One:........X.......... X........... X Year One.....Row Two: ..............X........... X Year Two.............X..........X........ Year Two........X..........X............X (I had to add the dots between the X's to make the diagram keep the right spacing example.) If you reverse the planting every year you never plant a tomato in the same hole two years in a row. This helps eliminate any kind of soil borne disease getting the roots. Plus, I usually add a fresh five gallon bucket of "new" organic soil to the planting hole each year anyway, which helps ever more. I was asked here at T'ville last season about the bed I had in the back yard that produced well over 700 tomatoes from 6 plants. I plan to show that in more detail with pictures this year. I've never seen production beat it. The bed was approximately 24" tall, which seemed to make a difference. __________________ Zone 7B, N. MS Last edited by TomatoDon; January 22, 2014 at 02:58 AM.

January 23, 2014	#22
drew51 Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Dec 2013 Location: Sterling Heights, MI Zone 6a/5b Posts: 1,302	Well my drill has settings for screws and drilling. I have drilled through steel with it. And it is small. Buy a good brand of drill with the strongest battery available. I also did go into the ends, but they are not falling down. I'm not building a house. One is 8x 12 and another is 25 inches by 24 feet. They are fine! Impact drills are for masonary and concrete you certainly don't need one for wood. I don't drill pilot holes either unless I'm using wood other than pine. So i disagree with a lot of the advice I do agree you need pilot holes for lag bolts, but man that is way overkill. Just put in 3.5 inch deck screws. it's not going anywhere! If it was a shed that was going to hold thousands of pounds, then certainly lag bolts are needed. The advice about the 4x4 corner piece is probably a good idea. But it will work without one. I would suggest using one, but I didn't. I have a Dewalt DCD780 drill/driver with 20 volt battery. It will drive a 3.5 inch deck screw into pine in 2.5 seconds or less. Like cutting butter with a hot knife! The drill is most certainly made to drive deck screws. Use star not phillip heads bTW, they never slip!! If they even sell phillip heads anymore? Last edited by drew51; January 23, 2014 at 01:58 PM.

January 23, 2014	#24
TomatoDon Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: MS Posts: 1,523	Three feet wide is not wide enough for two rows. It's great for one row. I guess if you staggered them you could call it two rows, but however you do it you need to have plenty of room all the way around the plant. I could add two feet to the width and get twice the planting space than I could get in a 3 foot wide bed. I used to have trouble bending over to reach the ground level of a 4 foot wide bed, but it never bothered me with tomatoes. When I stacked two 5 x 12 beds on top of each other last year it made it even easier. I can sit on the edge of the bed and reach anywhere. We all have techniques that work best, and that's the one that works best for me. __________________ Zone 7B, N. MS

January 23, 2014	#19
b54red Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Alabama Posts: 7,068	My beds are all 4 ft. wide and they worked great until I got older. Age and arthritis can make reaching the center of a 4 ft. bed quite difficult and tiring. I wish now I had made them 40 inches or 42 inches. That little bit of difference would make reaching the center much easier. It is only a big problem when trying to set out plants in the center of the beds or harvesting something like spinach or beans that are in the center. For some crops having a wider bed works better and for others a narrower bed would be better. One mistake you shouldn't make is not leaving enough room between the beds. I made that mistake and have really regretted it. Bill

January 23, 2014	#20
Worth1 Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Den of Drunken Fools Posts: 38,539	12' x 3' is optimum, with 5 12 foot boards you can make 2 raised beds with nothing but sawdust left over. I made mine 12 x 4 and it is a pain in the back to reach into the middle and I'm not that old. Always try to design your projects so you have a minimum of scraps and around common lengths. I have no problem using treated lumber. The best materials for them is what you can afford. If they are to be seen by the public make them aesthetically pleasing to the eyes. Put down barriers on the bottom before you fill them to keep out tree roots. Optimum would be to put them on concrete slabs. Making the slabs at least 4 feet longer and wider than the beds. This would keep out grass and the tree roots. Use sections of 4x4 posts in all corners to attach the screws or better lag bolts with washers. Drill holes in the first board your fastener goes through a fraction larger than the bolt diameter. Drill the hole the bolt screws into smaller the the screw diameter. Pre-drill all holes before assembly on a saw horse to save your back. Use a combination square or some other type of device to make all connections even and centered. Lag bolt. It is done, 'including me, but considered poor constitution practice to nail or screw into end grain. Look at your boards and see which way they will warp, put the crown out. Trim all boards so they are the same length and square. They do not come square from the store. These are some of the things I do, I'm not saying they are the only way but it is simply what I do. Worth

January 23, 2014	#21
Cole_Robbie Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jun 2012 Location: Illinois, zone 6 Posts: 8,407	Your lag bolt pic reminds me of my Ridgid 18v impact driver that is I think my favorite tool. It drives lag bolts like a beast. Most people I meet don't understand the difference between the drill and the impact driver. Drills are for drilling holes; drivers are for driving screws. Failure to follow your advice about drilling the correct pilot holes is how a typical cordless drill dies. Drills are not meant for driving deck screws and lag bolts (without a good pilot hole), whereas impact drivers can do it with ease and with very little wear on the tool.