Flex Your Garden With a Raised Bed

Raised bed gardening allows the gardener a simpler gardening experience while presenting a secure and valuable area for plants, vegetables, and flowers. Raised garden beds can be more accessible and convenient than a large “traditional” garden. Raised garden beds can be planted with small plots of veggies, herbs and flowers. Watering of a raised garden bed is also made more significant than a regular garden due to the quicker drainage of moisture from the soil because of a reduced compaction. Raised beds also make great places to grow plants that can be invasive in a regular garden – such as mints vines, and horseradish.

Raised bed gardening is designed so that an area of the yard where there are poor soil conditions that may be unfit for a garden are no longer an issue. If you make your raised beds longer than 6′ it will require additional stakes in the middle of the two long sides to keep them from bowing under the weight of the soil. Raised beds can be made from a variety of different materials, in an array of sizes, and they can be made with relative ease. Some gardeners like to till the soil before building a raised bed, to allow for additional root development.

Raised vegetable beds are excellent for gardeners who are older or have trouble with their backs and those who don’t have a lot of flexibility. It’s also great for those who have a limited amount of ground space, poor soil quality or impossibly hard to work ground. A raised garden bed allows them to be able to have a small garden where they otherwise might not have been able to.