Raised beds come in all kinds of wonderful shapes and sizes, allowing us to create raised bed vegetable gardens with both practical and aesthetic qualities. As time has progressed I have found myself moving towards one particular size of raised bed which for me is the perfect balance between productivity and being easy to work with. I encourage you to use this as a guide to help you find what you think is the perfect raised bed size for high productivity in vegetable gardens.
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Introduction 0:00
Width 0:48
Length 3:19
Height 4:39
Undercover 6:01
Summary 6:50
Planting Plan Course 6:58
#raisedbeds #vegetablegardening #permaculture
I am still reading your beginners book and started to make raised bed just about the size you mentioned.
I've been making 5ft by 2ft beds because uhh…my wife and I are both really short. Given the asinine price of lumber in the States, I've been making them out of cedar fence planking. Living in the southeastern US, my yard is basically red clay and rocks, so I need to make them fairly deep.
Hola !
Aqui.patricia desde argentina.
Me gustaría tomar el curso.
Como.lo.pago?
Se puede tomar en idioma español?
Gracias!
I made my beds taller, so the rabbits can't get into it. :p
2:37 Three-foot is enough.
Absolutely love your planting plan course, I’ve my garden planned for the year and it’s keeping me on track with everything I need to do!
Our house in on a hill. So our kitchen garden is also on a hill. So it is terraced. Ergo… A raised bed on one side. But that is done due to necessity, not preference. I prefer to not have raised beds if I can. They are more trouble than they are worth IMHO. But one benefit of raised beds not mentioned in this video is to deal with gopher or moles. If one lays down hardware cloth on the soil, then build a raised bed on top of this, it can remove damage from such sub soil mammals. So there are many good reasons to have raised beds.
What is the hand watering can you use, that one is nice!
I have 2 beds that are 3×6 ft and I like the size of them. One of them is about a foot tall and the other is 6 inches. I like the tall one better.
This is so very timely! Thank you.
We started last year with an 8 foot by 4 foot bed – the length was what would fit into the space we had available, while the width was from your suggested size! This year we have added three new beds, but these are various sizes depending on what materials we could get to make them. We have two that are about 4 foot by 3 1/2 foot, and the third was from B&Q and is about 3 foot by 2 foot. These all were fitted into the corner of the garden that gets the most sunshine and filled the space perfectly, and are all of a usable size for reaching over!
Thank you! 🙂
Thank you Huw for your min and max sizes. I think a lot of the decision is based on the materials you use. Wood comes in certain lengths, and if you don't want to waste, reasonable compromises work. I live in as wet part of Wales but probably warmer, so my ex scaffold board beds rotted fairly quickly. They have been replaced with concrete gavel boards. They are normally 6ft in length. The concrete fence posts are about 9 ft. You need a good cutter but 6x3ft beds, posts cut into 3 or 4 depending on hole depth and concrete fixing, fitted my space. Approximately 2 sq yards/ bed abd 4 beds. They are only an inch or so wide but standing and walking on the edges is not something you could reliably do on wood. A raised bed, raises the height of your bean poles and other structures, tying in the tops and picking and pinching out would involve a chair or step ladder otherwise.
Your thoughts on tunnel beds has reinforced mine too. Thanks for the video.
I see you've got a wonderful Polycrub – how do you find it in comparison to a regular poly tunnel?
Heres an idea for you, If you have beds that are a consistent width ( I have one continuous bed down the whole length of our backyard, one side is a path to access, the other side is the boundary fence) like mine.
You can get a piece of timber about 10cm wide and as long as your bed is wide. My piece of wood is 10cm x 130cm. It has another piece of timber at the end to make a T shape about 25cm across.
So when planting, I lay the end with the T up against the far edge of the bed, this gives you a perfect straight line, to plant along the length of the wood.
I have the long section of wood marked every 5cm, so depending on what your planting, you can pick the exact spacing you want!
All rows are super straight, with exact spacing. You can stagger the next row perfectly etc.
I really like everything looking perfect as it's right in our backyard and it also helps get a lot in a small area.
Cheers!
Your is the best course ever, and I have taken a lot. Well done!
Great video. Very informative. Thank you.
Si me gusta ese sistema de armar el huerto
Muy interesante, saludos desde España
love your videos!
With 50cm, would it be good to think about mouse stop ironfence?
Thanks Huw. Very useful. I got the Permaculture Magazine your in. Can't wait to read it. Well done. Been following your videos for some years.
Love the nettle video. Perhaps you would consider doing a Japanese Knotweed video.
We were mis-sold on our house, so I've turned Knotweed into a powerful positive. Herbal medicine (Resveratrol). Soap, face oil. Paper. And Green Electricity. Do message me. Would love to talk.
Scaffolding boards in the UK are usually 3m long by 30cm wide . So 3m long by 0.3m wide by 30cm high makes perfect sense.
Do you have a video about how you built your greenhouse? Tried searching your content but didn't find one.
Hello. I have been an organic vegetable grower for 30+ years. Here is what I have settle on for bed sizes. I am 6' . For gardening on flat ground I feel that 42" is ideal for my wider beds and 30" for my narrow beds. Otherwise it is whatever will fit under 42". I built new 12" raised beds this year. My central bed is 4' X 32'. 1/2 of the bed is devoted to fruit. I have a trellis for blackberries down the middle and half is strawberries. The beds are 1' in height and I put 2"x6" rails along the tops for a place to sit. Having the bed elevated makes it easier to reach the middle than on flat ground so 4' works for me. I am 75 yo so this makes it much easier for me to garden opposed to flat ground. I have found that 18" between beds works best. You do want ample room to turn around, move around, etc. I went with full 2' in these new beds. When I built my beds I put down 6" of wood chips and 6" of a clay loam soil on top. Above that I put about 2" of leaves and about 4" of straw. After three months undisturbed I discovered that the leaves were mostly decomposed and had created about 1/4" of new, beautiful, rich soil. Amazing. I was very pleased to discover that. We had a wet winter so I am sure that had much to do with the decomposition of the leaves.
Excelente video. Tengo una pregunta, pensando en un suelo base que está compactado y tiene malezas ¿recomendás quitarlas o es cavar un poco? Como preparo y acondiciono ese espacio para construir encima el jardín, esa sería la pregunta.
Un abrazo desde Argentina
I think beds that are like this should be a maximum of 3 feet. Wide enough to reach everything from one side. Then you dont have to "walk all the way around" for a foot of veg.
I do think that maximum yield for space is a 30 inch bed with a 10 to 18 inch walk space. The market guys have that all down pat.