Raised Bed Garden Ideas (Planning for the New Garden)

Pretty soon we’ll be relocating to our new home. Our family is very excited about this but it also means starting the garden all over again. Everything including raised beds, sheds, and arbors will have to be rebuilt. While this is a tremendous amount of work I think it’s a great opportunity to start again and redevelop our garden with everything we’ve learned from our first one over the last 16 years. Wow has it been that long?

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Building Our First Raised Beds in 2007

In 2007 we bought our house and gradually did a little more each year to grow our garden. We started with some wooden raised beds in the backyard. They were tiered raised beds with a taller square section and lower rectangular sections formed in a diamond shape. It sounded like a great idea but I learned that those raised beds required a long walk to get to the opposite side. The design and functionality did not mesh well.

The raised beds changed and we went to rectangle raised beds that allowed more walkway around them. The garden beds were still wood edged beds and as wood does it eventually rots away. We incorporated different materials as the beds disintegrated like stone, concrete paving blocks, and even metal raised beds. I love these materials for raised beds but they do tend to be more costly to install. Wood is so much cheaper and easier to come by but just doesn’t have the longevity these other materials do.

Raised Bed Design Questions in My Head

When I look at our next garden I start to think about a lot of design questions. How should I lay out the raised beds? What materials would be best for the raised beds? What materials would I have on hand to lower my costs of building raised beds? How can I make them look great but also very functional? I have a lot of questions to work through fortunately I have a few things working for me.

Concrete Block Raised Beds

I already have some materials from our current garden I can move over to rebuild raised beds. Over the years I purchased a lot of concrete retaining wall blocks that are stackable. While it will take some work these make really good raised beds that don’t rot away. My cost of building with them is insignificant as we already spent money on them once before. The only thing we would have into these new raised beds would be the time spent transporting them, putting the beds together, then filling them with soil and compost.

You might ask, wouldn’t the next owner of your house want the blocks for their garden? The next owner of our house may not even want to have a garden. In which case they wouldn’t need any of these blocks and it might be more helpful to them to have them removed entirely. Also what if they wanted to do something completely different? I moved here with a blank slate and that was perfect. I wanted to be able to make this property our own.

Natural Stone Raised Beds

We also have a considerable amount of natural stone we’ve imported. It’s mostly limestone people in our area wanted rid of and we were happy to help them out! In addition to that our new location has a ton of rock, or maybe 100 tons of rock, it’s hard to say! Suffice it to say we could do quite a few nice raised bed gardens with the natural limestone that is indigenous to our area. Not all of that rock is designated for raised beds. Some of the rock will be for stepping stones and a firepit area.

Metal Raised Beds

Moving Our Current Metal Raised Bed

We also have a beautiful raised bed that is made of metal sent to us by Olle Gardens (YouTube Link). I’m not sure yet where I want to locate the metal raised bed. It might work great near the house for a small kitchen garden filled with herbs and maybe a single tomato or pepper plant. It could also be used in the main garden where we add more metal raised beds. What I really like about that metal raised bed is the height it provides. Here’s a link to the Olle Garden raised bed on Amazon (affiliate link).

Building New Metal Raised Beds from Roofing Material

Several years ago I built another raised bed out of roofing material and pressure treated wood. It was tall and sturdy but really took a lot of material to fill it. I used a variation on hugelkulture to fill the base of the raised bed with logs and sticks. Then I added leaves, grass clippings, and compost. All that organic matter helped me get the soil level high enough to fill most of the raised bed. Then I added soil to the top. The organic matter decomposed very quickly which caused the garden to sink lower and I had to fill the raised bed again. I had to continue to fill the monster!

If I had cut the roofing so that the raised bed would be about half the height I would have had an easier time of it, and added a second metal raised bed in the process! During our home construction process metal was used as a subfloor for a concrete front porch and we had some leftovers. I think this might be the right time to try some roofing material metal raised beds once again!

A Converted Fire Ring Raised Bed

Another raised bed I currently have is a fire ring I converted to being a small circle raised bed. It’s perfect. The fire ring garden bed is 12 inches tall and 36 inches in diameter. It’s small for a raised bed garden but very sturdy, very functional, and will last a long time. I bought it from Tractor Supply company which has them for $80 at the time I’m writing this (aff.link)(which is cheaper than other places I’ve seen.) I’m considering getting a few more of these fire rings to use for more raised bed gardens.

I’ve seen also where people have used galvanized tubs, stock tanks and other metal farm structures to build some nice raised beds. Just add a little drainage and there you go! A new raised bed!

Leftover Building Materials

Another resource we can tap into is leftover construction material from building our home. There’s a lot of excess lumber we can utilize and there may even be some brick as well. Brick is still being put up on the house so we don’t know yet what leftovers there might be. There are a few concrete cinder blocks but not enough to actually build a good sized raised bed. A lot of materials have been shipped in on pallets which I plan to use for building some nice compost bins. I think a 3 chamber compost system may be just the thing to help us create a sustainable compost source.

Do I Even Need Raised Beds?

It’s a good question but I’ve been paying close attention to our soil. Did I mention rock? We have a lot of rock which doesn’t work well with tomatoes unfortunately. Raised bed are an amazing way to get above the rock issue. You can put a raised bed with adequate drainage pretty much anywhere even on rock or concrete.

How to Replenish the Soil in Raised Beds

The important thing is that you replenish the soil each season with compost and nutrients so that the plants have what they need. Raised bed gardens tend to be planted more intensively and those nutrients can be depleted by heavy feeding plants.

Crop Rotation

Crop rotation can help but adding fresh compost and organic fertilizers is also necessary.

Cover Crops

Cover crops in the “off season” are also great. They prevent erosions, add nutrients back to the soil, and can add a bunch of organic matter. Winter rye grass, crimson clover, buckwheat, and alfalfa are some good options to replenish the organic matter in your raised beds. They can be killed off with a weed eater and covered with a tarp a few weeks before you are ready to plant the beds. Then you work the organic matter into the soil and replenish the raised bed with the decaying organic matter.

Other Organic Matter

I also like to use leaves and grass clippings as mulch which both break down and help feed the soil. As you can tell there are a lot of ways to help rejuvenate the soil in your raised bed garden.

Manures can also be very beneficial but some manures need to be composted first. They contain a lot of nitrogen that can burn plants if you use the manure fresh. To be safe collect manure and allow it to compost with other materials for 6 months before using in the garden. Rabbit manure is safe to use right away.

I also have a large pile of woodchips that is composting as I type! I checked it a few days ago and found it full of earthworms doing their work. Over time the wood chips will break down and turn into usable compost material great for raised beds. Wood chips can be laid down fresh as pathways then turned into raised beds later or composted then used but should not be used fresh in the garden. The decay process will cause some nitrogen to leach from the soil which will take it away from the plants.

So What’s Next For Our Garden?

For now I’ll start moving our usable materials to the property. We have a couple months to move all the brick, stone, and wood we have and unfortunately can’t start the garden until after the construction is complete. The construction process is will still need access to the area where I am planning to build the garden. I don’t want to build something now only to have it destroyed by a truck running over it! That means we won’t have a garden going on the property until mid summer 2023 at the earliest.

Pots, Pots, and More Pots!

Our solution is to grow as much as we can in large pots. I’ve collect quite a few pots over the years. These pots are just old nursery pots from plants we’ve bought or other people bought and gave use the pots to reuse. They were leftovers from the farmer’s market business I ran a few years ago.

I’ll be planting several potato plants in large pots, moving blue berry bushes, potting up strawberry plants, and potting up our tomato and pepper plants this year. I can’t do without those peppers and tomatoes!

Once we’re at the new place we’ll figure out the raised bed layout, what materials we’ll use, and how to manage it all. One thing I’ve learned from our 16 years here is that it will always change. Gardens are never finished. They are a work in progress that continually builds on the work of the previous season. They are a work of planning and hope and sign of optimism for the next year. My goal is to create a good foundation for our garden so that it can be plentiful for years to come!

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