Image by redteam via Flickr

There are many reasons for constructing a raised bed. Sometimes your soil is far from ideal. Or perhaps you need to conserve space. You can grow twice as much in a raised bed than you can in a traditional garden in regular soil, increasing your production.

Another caveat of a raised bed is that it saves both time and money. Since you only need to tend to the bed and not to any surrounding soil, your efforts pay off much more quickly. You don’t have to weed as much when crops are grown closely as weeds can’t compete in the mix and die off on their own.

Raised beds are perfect for gardeners who are wheelchair bound or have limited mobility as this style of bed brings the garden upwards making it within reach. A raised bed can allow a disabled person the ability to continue to garden or perhaps become a new viable pastime. 

The quickest way to make a raised bed is to buy a pre-fabricated bed in a box kit which is readily available at both DIY stores and garden centers. Alternately with just a few tools you can easily hammer together a wooden frame. Frames hold the soil in and keep it from washing away. You can also use rocks, bricks or concrete blocks to frame a bed.

Once the frame is erected, the fastest way to fill it is with compost. If your existing soil is bad, you may want to have new topsoil and soil amendments delivered to start from scratch with in the raised bed. This way you don’t use any of the existing bad soil which might taint the bed.

The traditional way to treat the existing soil is to do what is called double digging. This is a tough process that requires a good deal of work requiring the topsoil to be completely removed and the underlying subsoil mixed with new organic matter to enrich it.

Once the bed is built, you are ready to plant it and reap the bountiful rewards of a very productive raised bed garden.

Jerry J. Jansen
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