How I made my dream raised bed garden
I'm sharing everything about my raised bed garden: How and why I built it, what I love and what I wish I'd done differently.
B L O G L I N K S
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🌿 The Ultimate Guide to Raised Beds: www.theimpatientgardener.com/...
🌿My Take on Raised Bed Construction: www.theimpatientgardener.com/...
🌿Raised Bed Construction Part 1: www.theimpatientgardener.com/...
🌿Raised bed Construction Part 2: www.theimpatientgardener.com/...
🌿Raised Bed Construction Part 3: www.theimpatientgardener.com/...
L I N K S
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Internal wood stabilizer: timberprocoatingsusa.com/prod...
Food-friendly wood stain: timberprocoatingsusa.com/prod...
C H A P T E R S
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2:25 Garden must-haves
3:29 Size and measurements
4:22 Gates
5:45 Site preparation
7:15 Building the beds (and the mistake we made)
10:10 Soil
12:11 Gravel (and the BIG mistake we made)
18:54 What I'd change if I could
21:50 Things I love
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The Impatient Gardener
P.O. Box 99
Belgium, WI 53004
My name is Erin and I love sharing inspiration and information with real-life gardeners. I live and garden in southeastern Wisconsin, zone 5b.
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I use refrigerators ! Get some OLD refrigerators. Look around your neighborhood - people often have their old ones in their back yards and are glad to get rid of them. My husband and I drove our pick-up truck around one day and picked up 6 of them. So - you remove the doors and the gadgets, lay the fridge on it's back, drill some drain holes in the bottom. Then you put in some rocks and/or logs or pieces of wood, a bunch of weeds or grass clippings, straw, or other organic fill. Top it off with a foot or so of good soil. There! You have a raised bed. 💕
That's brilliant!!
Oh, she didn’t mention how she gets water back there. One of my favorite things in my own garden is that we ran hose underground from the exterior house spigot to the beds, with each raised bed having its own spigot. Each spigot has its own timer that attaches to drip line though the beds. So the beds self-water on a schedule depending on the water requirements for the plants in that particular bed. It took a while to set up, but I’d never garden without it now.
I'm going to do that for my raised beds. Thanks for the suggestion.
What a great idea! Thx for sharing.
That was my big problem in my 2022 garden… it was big and beautiful, ..and too far from a water source. I ran several hoses from one of the livestock spigots, but the sprinklers didn’t reach all of it, and my attempts at flood irrigation down my heavy drinkers (corn, pumpkins, etc) ended up washing under quite a few of my rows. Once my corn got lush and tall, it fell over in the wind and I lost a good bit of my anticipated harvest. My pumpkins grew all throughout my corn rows, so it was very difficult to ensure adequate flow of irrigation to the farthest end of the corn, plus making it impossible to walk down the middles. This year I will be starting on an irrigation set up.. hopefully.
This is pretty much exactly what we did. Ran a line underground to the garden. There is a hose spigot and three timed zones that go to the raised beds and side beds. I didn’t get into it in this video because I see it as a separate discussion from construction and it could be a whole video in itself.
@@TheImpatientGardener it turned out beautifully
“I also think our deer are too lazy to bother!” I absolutely love this statement!!! 😂🤣
I hate to even mention it, but you could have just added 1 or 2 more boards to make up for the height you desired. I do love the idea and you've inspired me to build something on a smaller scale for my wife to get out and take our cats into closer to our house. Very sturdy design and looks awesome! Nice job!
I’m sure that crossed their mind. She said she didn’t want the gravel piled up against the wood.
My suggestion for the rabbit issue would be to put 2' chicken wire around the bottom of the fence. Paint it black with a roller on both sides and it will be almost invisible. Love your garden area and the whole design....GREAT JOB!
This video is exactly what I was hoping to find. Thank you for taking the time to make it. I too have a grand plan that I WILL create one day but I'm limited by funds and time right now. Plus, I have this lingering hesitation that I'll make a big mistake that I'll look back on and wish I had thought through more carefully. Determining the proper layer of tampered surface, to stone and then raised bed and then barrier from underground creatures like groundhogs is overwhelming to me. I dream of the day that I can come home, grab a glass of wine and walk out to my garden to bask in the glory. Enjoy it!
Very generous of you to share what you would do differently. Hind sight is always 20/20. I love your raised garden just as it is! Cheers, Erin!
There are so many things I love about your gardens, but your raised bed garden is at the top of my list. It’s both very beautiful and functional. You’ve provided us with so many great points to consider when designing our own. I’ve grown my veggies in pots or in the ground, sometimes interspersed with flowers, etc. but as I get older the need for raised beds becomes more evident to me. Thanks so much for sharing this great video Erin. I know it’s going to be very helpful to not just me, but many others as well.
I am a new gardener and so excited to implement some of her ideas including her gate and arbor. I already have a designated space and I know this whole process will take time but, as we all know, gotta get started the sooner the better the way things are going.
Really enjoyed hearing the backstory and your thought process in planning this beautiful space. Yes, I can see why a glass of wine and time spent in your garden is a favorite of yours. Love, love, love the garden gate and the overall design of this space. Very classy. Thank you, Erin.
I have tall raised beds too, made by my husband one or two a year with mostly salvaged wood and steel roofing. Some match, others don't and I don't mind! I also have two quite tall metal repurposed pig feeders that are my herb gardens. I go out to my garden in the morning with my coffee and in the evening with my wine. I'm retired now so I have that luxury. Your garden is absolutely beautiful. Looking forward to spring.
I love this video! Plz do more of what you like and what you would do different in other areas of the garden, patio ,home…you explain so well.
Great video! I love when gardeners share pros and cons. So helpful to anyone starting a new garden! 💚
It amazes me that you have a job AND you have this beautiful space….your whole garden is gorgeous and I love it all. You are definitely one of my favorite people to watch on KZhead 😊
Looks fabulous! I love the stain colour choices you made, pairing the fence with the gravel colour and your beautiful gate with the raised beds. It’s perfection 💯
I have been admiring your raised bed garden since I first saw it! The Belgian (sp?) fence is so cool, I’m surprised you didn’t mention it. And I can’t say enough about that beautiful gate! This video has given us a lot to consider in planning our own spaces. Thanks Erin!!
You & hubby worked so hard for that beautiful space; I'm glad you are getting so much from it. Thanks for sharing what you learned from the process.
I love your raised bed garden, too! SUGGESTION: You could run 2ft. high hardware cloth all around the bottom of the fence to help deter the rabbits (not sure how you could stop them from crawling under the two end gates, though). Thanks so much for sharing what your thought process was for planning and executing this project. Everything looks great. 💚😊💚
When I first started gardening, I started a tradition of growing something new every year! It was so fun, learning what I could grow, what I couldn't grow, what I like to grow, and what I would grow again! Love your garden!
Thank you for this video. I had to abandon my garden after my accident 10 years ago that left me unable to keep up with it. We had shorter beds and a simple fence around it and planned to make some improvements, but never had the opportunity before my accident and my husband eventually tore it down. As I am slowly getting back some mobility, I hope to build another raised bed garden improving on some things I learned. I appreciate your suggestions too. You inspired me!
Thank you, Erin! I just bought a little farmhouse on an 8 acre property this past summer and I can’t wait to have a beautiful garden….but I have so many deer!!! Your videos have really helped me cope with the deer (repellent really does work!) and I am at this moment planning my summer veg garden. I’m struggling to resist the urge to build out something like your veg garden….I want it so badly!!! But I feel it is smarter to live here for at least one year to feel all of the seasons and observe what happens naturally before making more permanent decisions. This video is a HUGE help as I look towards my future vegetable garden!!! Appreciatively yours, Pamela zone 9b
Save up money for a deer fence. You will never regret it. Over time our deer overcame every scent repellent I tried. When they started eating out of window boxes I knew they had won that battle.
Ditto as to the deer fencing. In my experience regarding in-ground or low raised bed gardens, much of the damage is done by the deer trampling the plants as much as eating things and/or pulling them out of the ground.
I was just wondering if anyone has tried a sort of "Deer Garden" located close to the woods... Where things that Deer love the most are, they can feast to their hearts' content and hopefully leave alone what the humans have planted for themselves? On second thought, that wouldn't work because they'd start in on the humans' space. Poor things think that the "invaders" of their space are planting gardens as "peace" offerings 🤔😉😉.
@@alcg3981 I live in Colorado where the deer population is large even in town. From experience they go for the plants they are drawn to the most and then they will hit everything else. Recently, I saw a 6 point buck eating out of a neighbor's birdfeeder. Nothing is safe from deer. Even so-called deer resistant plants are no guarantee that they won't be chomped on. 🙄
We are also planning raised beds after deer destroyed our whole garden last early July before the first tomatoes. Loved this recap and can't wait to watch and read everything about your gardens.
Thanks for sharing, loads of great info. I love your garden gate! My Mother had a saying if she was upset about an event or person she would say don't come swinging on my garden gate!
I have short raised beds with no fence. You have given me so many ideas, my husband is not going to be happy 😂🤣😂 Love your Channel 💖💖💖
When we bought our home last year, we were lucky enough to have a chain link fenced in garden plot. It is about 20 feet long by 15 feet wide. We had a big problem with wet, sticky clay. My hubby leveled it and we brought in straw bales which we spread everywhere after we laid out vegetation cloth over the clay. No more clay troubles! We bought 6 big plastic planters secondhand and 3 aluminum tubs about three feet across for planting. Holes were drilled in the bottoms and placed in the garden. Inside the planters, we filled with shredded paper, broken skinny branches, dry leaves and soil. Our garden did pretty well. In two of the tubs, we must have had at least 100 tomatoes! The rest did well with what they were planted with. Been planning for this Spring plantings already, including adding 2 more tubs and moving the planters elsewhere for flowers. Enjoy your garden, we do. There is nothing better than deep planters. Your back will thank you.
I absolutely adore your garden! We recently moved from a home with a small city lot to a home with 2 acres - plenty of room for something like this. Spring can’t come soon enough!
Amazing insight. I've been creating my garden piece by piece and there is so much that goes into the process, and then when using the space you find more things to add and change. Gotta love the process.
I probably would have just added another board to make the beds taller! 😆
Good morning, Erin ☕️ I absolutely love your raised bed veggie garden! It’s my inspiration!
You hit on several of the issues I face like that landscape cloth becomes a problem, baby rabbits or in my case chipmunks consider my garden their pantry, that I can't drop logs into my ground (in my case due to termites), and gave me a better perspective of how to design my next iteration. Love your garden.
I really like your garden, especially with the stock tank in the center. It's unique and designed and built by you, which really makes it special . Love the gate 😁
Thanks for this! Some great pointers and "learn from my mistakes" opportunity. My favorite thing in your garden is the espalier plantings 😁
Such a beautiful garden and a video full of insight. Thank you Erin. From my experience a rabbit will always find a way in to a warm cozy spot!🤓
I appreciate you reflecting and telling what you’d do differently. So many channels make everything rainbows and unicorns. Thanks for being brutally honest. You are so comfortable in front of the camera. Keep it going! I think you’d be great with an interview/guest scenario. Maybe more footage of what you are talking about visually. Last- you never talked about water 💦 so so so important for so many of us.
This woman loves raised beds
My lumber mill owner explained that it is not dampness which rots the wood in raised beds. It is the bacteria in the soil which comes in contact w. the lumber. I just lay landscape fabric, old sheets or wallpaper, lay bales of hay in long double or triple rows. Cut & slip off baler twine now. Lay them on their sides, end to end so it's easy to shove hand down every foot or less, put in 2 cups of soil, tuck in the roots or cuttings or tubers, water the entire thing several times the first week if not co-ordinated w. predicted showers. Done. Rarely ever had to do anything more except occasionally pull random weeds along the long edges. As the hay rots over the years, the plants have completely covered the area. 4 yrs later I am now thinning to my other properties for 'free' landscaping. Lots of expenses w. fixer-uppers or builds, at least the yard gets done fast, almost no cost.
Your garden is perfect, it is my dream garden (and gate)! Adding cold frames would be great for your climate to extend your short growing season. Thank you for showing the whole building process, including the snafus.
Love your raised bed garden! Aesthetically pleasing with the layout, construction, and extra features (especially the gate. We have some small beds, but the critters are such a problem! When I used to grow in a plot in a community garden, they had a big. Chainlink fence, which the rabits hopped right through. So the parks dept. came and put small mesh fencing on the chainlink, up a couple feet, it really kept them out.
Thanks for this great info. I’m somewhat green with envy!
I loved your veg garden so much I approached a company to build something similar for us but the quote was crazy expensive in these post-Covid times. I will continue to save my pennies until I can get it done. My partner’s comment when the quote came in was “wow, those will be expensive carrots!” But, with the cost of food is climbing so fast now, I’m regretting not forging ahead with it last year.
Very interesting. I'm starting the second year of building my garden plan which will hopefully be mostly finished this summer. It's nice to hear someone else shares my aversion of landscape fabrics. Your garden looks amazing. I'm so happy for your success.
23:40 Is an appealing look. You capture peace and fun all in one image. Have fun in the spring of 2023!
Your garden is very lovely and looks so practical. Sure looks like a lot of work went into building and amending it, but it seems worth it. And I'm with you about the cold frames: they're my favorite feature in Monty Don's gardens, and just think how many more seedlings you could grow! (By the way, it's your fault that I just made another seed order...)
I love your raised bed garden, too. Beautiful and functional. The stock tank pond is the icing on the cake.
Thanks Erin! Your garden is beautiful
Really good discussion of how you made the beds and the problem with the gravel. Personally, I'd have said eff it, and added one more 4x4 to raise it up 5+ inches. And you're right about the cedar not being anywhere as good as the (now impossible to find) old-growth cedar. Pity that you didn't put gravel under the planters as that would have significantly reduced the speed of decomposition.
The quality of the cedar is really important. To put it into perspective, we have a cedar fence and a cedar table set. Both are outdoors all year round. The fence is starting to brown and rot after 3 years. Meanwhile, the table and chair set doesn't appear to have aged a day. The furniture is MUCH finer grain and has an oil finish vs the fence which is splintery and unfinished.
Lol on the dimensions discussion. Been there ... If it isn't exactly 4x8...eh. So. it worked out well in the end. Measure twice cut once, etc...
Love love LOVE this, thank you for gifting us with this!!
WOW!such a informative video, so many tips, i absolutely enjoyed this! Thank you Erin 😊
Oh, also you can paint the sides pretty colors. We have a grand refrigerator garden.
Your garden space is truly divine! Thanks for the walk-through. You have given me some great ideas with which to improve my 16 year-old raised bed garden that is desperately in need of renovation. Happy gardening.
Good morning Erin. That garden looks absolutely lovely. It's always better to convert our backyards into gardens - so many edible plants and weeds out there. I can't wait to get started on mine.
Very articulate and well done! Lovely space. Really appreciate your organized and methodical approach. Thanks for the tip on the food grade stain. Love the color your chose.
I've always admired your vegetable garden & love hearing about your planning process & all the details. I can only hope my new veggie space will be as beautiful & bountiful! Most appreciate the tip about raised beds at the perimeter to help combat the bunnies!
I am so happy to see this! We are doing a large area this season where we want to remove sod. You provided so many good things to think about! Thank you!! ❤
I love 💕 your raised bed garden , too . The design is beautiful. How do you water the beds ? Do you have drip ?
Super useful information. Thanks for sharing the highs and lows of your garden!
Hindsight can be painfully 20/20 sometimes, right? I absolutely LOVE your raised bed garden space and really value what you shared here! I'm planning to incorporate raised beds in my yard in the near future and appreciate you sharing your experience! Happy Gardening! 🥔🥕🍅
I love your raised bed garden, and look forward to videos that feature it. I think you’ve designed it so thoughtfully, from the gate and pond to the Belgian fence. I appreciate hearing references to the fact this project needed to be budgeted for-a fact most of us live with! Thanks for sharing the story of how this charming corner of your garden came to be.
Just found you, Wonderful video, subbed. You have a great personality, no bullshit get to the point, know what you like & are determined to do it and I love that. I usually get annoyed with an overload of info/talk but you presented really important lessons and wisdom from your build experiences and that’s true value right there. I would have made every error that you did so thank you. I also get so drawn in to gardeners chatter, it’s delightful and honest when we become mother hens to our plots clucking over our toil and harvests, sharing the peace and openness and connectivity gardens bring to our soul. Only gardeners relate. Gardens are a universal language of expression with natures bounty. Thank you for all your energy and hard work in your video it’s really appreciated x ❤
Wonderful garden space! We live amongst rabbits, woodchucks, birds and deer, so to create a vegetable and flower garden would be an exercise in futility and very costly per item. Love your show, though- most helpful.
total agreement...a garden is a peaceful sanctuary for today's busy chaotic world. I too have a raised bed garden, it is approximately 1/8th the size of yours, lol. In it i grow the fruits and veggies i love the most, all this is done using dwarf and container intended verities. You have given great ideas as to how a garden can be started and also how improve upon one that is already established. Thank you for sharing your process. Also, your Garden Gate is absolutely beautiful.
Thank you your explanation really helps with plans on starting our new dream garden.
Thank for sharing! Such great information. I loved it when you said when you get home from work, you grab a glass of wine and head to the garden, my immediate thought was "glass of wine or gin!" LOL. It is a beautiful garden.
Love this!!
In Florida here we went with raised galvanized steel beds. They've done well so far 1 year and counting. I had to put down weed fabric. I put the cardboard the first time..grass loved it
My husband made me 6 raised beds, I love them. They aren't quite as tall as yours. I wish they were taller now but they work really well.
Thanks for sharing. Lots of info. ❤
Great video, I’m at the beginning stages of designing my raised garden, deer issues also 😤. Thanks!
Very cool! I love your set up!
LOVE the details. Wish I could have watched this 6 years ago. I agree with everything she is sharing! Such helpful information to a new gardener!
Love your gate!
Love this space and this video thanks
Thank you, Erin, for this great walk through! I am currently reimagining an area in my back yard and I was thinking of moving some shorter raised beds my husband made me a few years ago to a new spot. You've helped me to decide to do that because it's the place with the most sun, but I'm also going to have him make them taller.😊
This WAS so helpful with your likes/ what I'd do different takes. We built all our (12-14" high) raised beds from our cottage build leftovers with a few more plank purchases. Now coming up 4th summer garden & I have got to have a more permanent and taller bed. I love yours; I just don't know how long even 4 x 4's would last down south. For your edge beds, have you considered maybe something like 1x4 Trex type board? They even come in 16' lengths. Again pricey going in, but it would demarcate a short in height raised bed for compost & the neater look you want maybe.
I love your raised beds! Always have!
Glad I found you!!!!
It's awesome! Garden goals! 🤓🤓
How little it takes to feel happy... Just a small garden... I liked it!
Very educational. Thanks!!!
Superb video.
Love this. I wish we could have seen it before building our raised bed garden. It works for us but should have been designed better.
Great information and recap - thank you.
Helpful information. Thank you.
Lots of inspiration for my garden thanks!!!
I like that, puttering around the garden - Wine glass in hand ! Enjoy !!
Thank you, so helpful and inspiring.
Great information Erin! Thank you for sharing! 💝
We built our first veggie garden in raised bed style with a very similar layout to yours in the Fall. Had time to get the garlic in before winter. Now I am excitedly waiting for spring to plant the inaugural garden. Everything we grow will be an experiment. I even was given a garden journal for Christmas to track the progress. Fingers crossed!
We have high raised beds. Our high raised beds have a cedar edge around the top that make them attractive and easy to sit on. We never have enough beds (lol). We have 12 beds that are 3 x 8 and 6 beds that are 4 x 6. I use grow bags for early potatoes and also about half my peppers. We put in a Ruth Stout bed which we use for potatoes, onions, pumpkins, and butternut squash that is 4 x 40 (it gets longer each year. ) we only grow thing in it that are rather carefree. Harvested 40 butternut squash this year and 4 pumpkins, etc. Our whole yard is sloped. I wish we could have had it leveled. We put the first raised bed in our first year - now 19 years ago. We have a half acre pond so we filled the bottom of some of the beds with pond weeds.
This is the best garden building video I have watched. I am just starting and living in the south of Missouri that is all rock
Great video. So helpful to hear both sides given your hindsight. As usual your down to earth, practical, full out honesty is a treat to watch, listen and learn from. Thank you.
I have been waiting for this video forever! Thank you!! 💚
I would love to have that! Looks beautiful too!!
My husband says the same thing “cedar is not what it used to be; it’s the same as pine and other woods.”
Good for you. Love the gate and raised beds! Thanks for sharing.
great video! thanks for sharing all the info
This is alot of information. Ty for sharing.
Awesome job explaining your steps.
Your garden is my dream!
Great video, your garden gate was my inspiration when we put one in a few years ago!
Great informative video Erin. I will defiinalely be watching again and taking notes. Thank you