How do I build a raised vegetable garden

[Jason]

Welcome to Workshop @donna. It's great to have you join the community. I hope you find plenty of great information, ideas and advice and I'm looking forward to reading about your plans and projects.

A raised vegie garden is a great project. I'm sure there will be many community members keen to assist.

Here's a few posts that should inspire:

• @bruceprince's raised garden 

• @RodAndo's planter box

• @timjeffries garden bed front fence

The following Bunnings D.I.Y. videos should also be a great help. 

Jason

[greygardener]

Hi @donna,

What materials were you planning to use for the raised garden bed? Do you have good DIY skills to build something from scratch or would you prefer to buy a simple kit? There are lots of options to explore. And then you get to the fun part of getting the soil ready and planting.

[Dale]

Hi @donna.

I use old fruit picking bins for my garden beds. Put casters on the bottom and they become mobile too.

[timjeffries]

There are so many options available to you @donna. Do you have a sense of what you would like to use it for? That might point you in the right direction for how big it needs to be, what materials to use, etc.

[Wayne]

I made 3 garden beds from sleepers I had cut to size (at Bunnings) 2 are 1800mm x 900mm and the middle one is 1800mm x 1200mm.

It is hard to see them here they are nestled in amongst the Agapanthus.
One thing I will say is that they require a lot of soil, I used a mix of bagged compost and potting soil and numerous bags of each!

[bluebec]

I didn't make my own, I bought them from a water tank supplier. I only didn't make them because I didn't have the tools. If I did it again, I would definitely make them, purchasing or borrowing the tools would be cheaper than buying all the beds.

The hardest bit is filling them up with soil, because you need quite a lot of it. I first used a mixture of sugar cane mulch, pea straw and purchased compost/garden soil. Then I found out that onions and garlic don't like peas - so that didn't go so well. ALso, carrots prefer more soil than I'd given them to grow in. Over the next 5 years I gradually filled them up with a mixture of my own compost and store bought compost/garden soil. This means I get lots of little tomatoes and pumpkins sprouting because my compost is full of seeds from the things we've eaten, which clearly haven't broken down fully.

[Jason]

Hi @donna,

Great to see that you got such fantastic suggestions from Workshop community members. I trust you found their advice useful. Please let us know how you go with the project.

Jason