Raised garden Beds

[KONASDAD]

Some other threads have discussed various styles of gradening. I built my first raised veggie garden and like the results so far. I used pressure treated 4x4's and one box took about 2hrs to assemble and fill w/ dirt etc. Cost $175. My question is what kind of boxes are you building? I bet one of you guys/gals has an even easier  method of raised garden construction

[MarkR]

I use 2x10's, either one layer or two, depending on how ambitious I am, and whether whatever it is I'm putting in there has a deep root system or not.  I don't use pressure treated lumber.  I'm sure a few years down the road I'll be sorry about that but I'm a bit squeamish about the leaching that might or might not happen from the treated.

Mark

[MarkR]

Then there's this:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/markrough/509219517/

but my back doesn't like me very much after that.  Plus it took most of the summer to figure it out.  And you thought a super full of honey was heavy!!!

Mark

[KONASDAD]

very nice looking garden. I have so much room, I need to be more efficient so I can use more and more of it!!! is the hope w/ raised beds.

[reinbeau]

I've gardened in raised beds for years, 4x12, now that I've also got a huge 30x35' garden out back I don't know what to do with it!  No raised beds out there, hubby likes to rototill too much.  So, I use that space for the big stuff, like corn, tomatoes, pole beans, squash, cukes, etc.  Everything else goes out front.

As for pressure treated, the beds in the front yard were built by my father 28 years ago.  The bad PT, but it didn't kill us, and I'm sure by now it's leached, if it did leach at all.  There's no hair growing out of our eyeballs or anything, so I'm going to go on in blishful ignorance.  However, if I ever rebuild them, they'll not be made of PT.

[JBird]

I'm right around the corner from you and have three raised beds, each 4' X 24' X 1' deep.  I opted to use untreated lumber figuring I'd simply replace the boards in 5+ years when they grow tired and because I'm not interested in using any treated materials around food.  While it took a long time to fill the beds, I'm very pleased with their productivity.  I have access to unlimited amounts of free horse manure, so that has helped in many ways.  There is a fairly active message board on Square Foot Gardening at Gardenweb.com that you might care to investigate.

[organicgrl37]

I built my a raised garden for my backyard this year out of 4"x10"x2" doubled for height made out of cedar from my neighbor's junk pile. It was an awesome score, it took me 1/2 hour to build and 20 mins to fill. I have my heirloom toms in there along with the basil, marigolds. It is looking good and I am happy, the plants look happy, so we are good to go!!

[Cindi]

organicgrl37.  Right on!!!!  Heirloom seed plants.  Good for you.  Best of this beautiful day.  Cindi

[organicgrl37]

have been sitting out in the garden for the last 4 hours, pretty flowers and clover blooming every where. I haven't seen one honey bee, I just realized I haven't seen any since we saw the 1 in my front yard 2 weeks ago. Usually our little yard has tons of honey bees and bumble bees. Not this year. It is just so sad :(

[Cindi]

organicgrl37.  Now that is a pretty weird thing eh?  Narry a bee.  It is kind of sad to think about it for sure.  Have a wonderful day, good life. Cindi

[bluegrass]

scrap wood is great and if you can find wood direct from the mill, that is second best.
Silt fence makes a good cheap raised bed; just stake it down and fill it up.