How deep should raised beds be?

[BReeder!]

Oh, you'd be surprised... I have some type of thorny vine from hell that is quite aggressive. It has come up through a 3 ft bed that was loaded with wood chips. I eventually just moved the whole dang bed and gave up.

Aggressive vines and grasses can be a real bear. Pull what you can and starve the rest out with black plastic. That's the only way I know to get rid of such things without chemicals.
Do not attempt to till/cultivate aggressive vines or grasses to get rid of them as you will likely just redistribute them and increase the number of pants.

 

[NatJ]

Aggressive vines and grasses can be a real bear. Pull what you can and starve the rest out with black plastic. That's the only way I know to get rid of such things without chemicals.

I'll bet chickens could do the job.

Build a chicken run on the spot, let the chickens reduce it to bare ground, and then continue keeping the chickens there another year or two.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Also most paper and cardboard have a good amount of chemicals in them.

I admit I have the same concern, but I have a good amount of wood chips and branches from my own lot (so I know they're not treated with anything) that make for good fill.

 

[CDitzel]

I had lots of cardboard so I laid cardboard onto the grass to kill it, on top of the cardboard I placed my raised beds with soil. My raised beds are 6” deep but the plants can root into the land’s soil.

I was fortunate enough to get free ready made boxes 6 ft long 3 ft deep and 2 ft wide. I placed 2 bales of straw in each of the 5 boxes and added mushroom soil. The straw is breaking down now, the 3rd year, and will add mushroom soil as needed. Crops are very productive and rodents are not able to get to them. This year we are adding 2 10 x 10 x8 dog kennels put together to be 10 x 20 x8. 8 inches of soil will be replaced with 8 inches of mushroom soil. The chain links will be used for climbing crops to increase capacity. This will be deer and rodent proof.

 

[Sally PB]

Wow, after seeing what everyone else has done, I feel a little silly talking about my raised beds.

I marked out where I wanted the beds. I took the topsoil from the space between them and put it on top of the soil that was there. (This was already a garden, not sod, btw.) I did this in the fall and put all the compost I had on top of the piles. My husband mowed the fall leaves into mulch, and I piled that on and worked it in with my hands. I got in touch with my inner child and pretended I was making mud pies.

I mulched the walkways between the beds HEAVILY with raked up thatch the next spring. My garden production was about the same as it had been before the raised beds, but it was much easier to work in. (Much much easier.) It was also not a very good year for gardens in the area, so I felt like the beds had done better.

Each year, I mulch the walkways with thatch; straw would work too. In the fall, I rake it up and put it on the raised beds. I add compost as often as I have it, and I have a lot more now that I have chickens.

Each spring, I "neaten" the sides of the beds, as they do tend to settle and spread. I am slowly bolstering the sides with rocks, which I have for the labor of moving them. I like the look of the beds, the garden is neater, and I can move around and work in there more easily.

I'd say my beds are about 12" high from the surrounding soil. The roots can go as deep as they like.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Wow, after seeing what everyone else has done, I feel a little silly talking about my raised beds.

I marked out where I wanted the beds. I took the topsoil from the space between them and put it on top of the soil that was there. (This was already a garden, not sod, btw.) I did this in the fall and put all the compost I had on top of the piles. My husband mowed the fall leaves into mulch, and I piled that on and worked it in with my hands. I got in touch with my inner child and pretended I was making mud pies.

Nothing wrong with doing mounds - I tried that for my shade garden, and also have a large flower bed (not sure what else to call it, random things grow there) that's basically a giant mound next to the driveway. Though I admit I like the look of hard edges so I went back and added them to the shade garden since I had some wood to work with after dismantling a used kit-type garden bed.

 

[Sally PB]

Oh, I sure do like the look of nice neat raised beds. I can't justify the expense of the materials. I have 9 beds that are 4x16. Or 18. Not sure.

I am blessed with all garden space I want. Yes, I do know how lucky I am.

 

[writerskramp]

Hello all. I am looking to revamp my garden some this year. I have been doing a container garden for many years out of 5 gallon buckets with good success. However many of my buckets are brittle from sun damage and starting to fall apart, so I was considering starting to convert over to raised beds instead. I am planning to price some options out tomorrow to decide what will be best. I am considering building one from cedar lumber or possibly a galvanized stock tank. Since I would be building with the lumber, I could essentially make them whatever height I wanted them to be. On the stock tanks they look to come in 12" or 24" heights. Just from quickly looking into it, I find a lot of people saying 12" is good for a raised bed. Then I see some people say tomatoes need more like 24" for their root systems while other people say 24" is too deep and you would need to fill some space with empty milk jugs or something similar to kill some of the space to save from having to fill it all with soil. I was just wanting to get some info from you fine folks to get a better idea on what I should be looking for. I normally do a couple of tomato plants, some various pepper plants, a cucumber plant, zucchini, squash, okra plant, and possibly something else if I am overlooking anything. Do y'all think a 12" would work well for those or is the 24" really where I need to be looking?

Thank you.

Just laid mine on blow sand ground and filled with composted pig manure.. supposed, dirt.. which I have amended over the years.. with some car parts. Frames made of old barn flooring I scrounged from a son that 'a friend' dumped on his property. They are ten too twelve inch in width.. As long as the roots can dig as deep as they like. There should be no issue.. Self-contained stock tank, you need to think root depth.. and drainage. They are starting to decay.. and when the do, they will just be a berm.. Works in the back garden just fine, no sides. Just a mound of dirt.

 

[CDitzel]

This is what we are doing this spring. We connected 2 10 x 10 kennels and lined with 12 inch treated wood. We will line with landscaping cloth and fill with 12 inch deep mushroom soil which is a type of weed free composted soil. The sides of the kennel will work like a trellis and the kennels will keep deer and other creatures out of my garden. In the future we can add another kennel if we want a larger garden. We are on 10 acres in the mountains of Central PA. We are also starting chickens and ducks this year and re planted our orchard which was hit by a blight a couple of years ago.