Things You'll Need:
- 2x2 treated wood
- 1x6 treated wood
- hammer
- top soil (potting soil can be used as well)
- landscaping cloth
- circular saw
- gloves
- safety goggles
-
Step 1
Having a raised garden bed is ideal for your tuberous vegetable. I use it to grow my onions, potatoes, peanuts, carrots, radish, and sweet potatoes. The main reason for doing this is that the soil is typically loose in growing this type of plant which is the ideal environment for them.
-
Step 2
The first thing that you want to do is determine where the bed will be built. For the avid gardeners, you typically already have these spaces marked out. In my case, I have a garden that is enclosed with 4x4s and lattice. I find that this helps in keeping the animals out.
-
Step 3
The next thing that you will want to do is to remove all of the grass. Once that is done, you will want to use a tiller to turn the soil. Once the soil is turned I typically will rake it out to even it out.
-
Step 4
Once the soil is tilled and raked, take your landscaping cloth and lay it down. This will benefit you in keeping the weeds out. You are going to have 6 inches of soil, so you will not need for the plant to go through the cloth. Make sure to keep the cloth tight on the ground.
-
Step 5
With the cloth on the ground, it is now time to place the boards. Once you have decided how long and wide that your bed is going to be, then you will want to cut your 1x6 boards to fit the area. I recommend keeping the measurements simple. For the width 4 to 6 feet is ideal. I would not recommend that you go over 6 feet as you might have to walk in the bed and this will compact the soil.
-
Step 6
Once the boards are laid out, cut the 2x2 wood stakes to 12 inches using a 45 degree angle for the cut on 1 end. (This means that for every 45 degree cut, you will cut a straight 180 degree cut next). You can not use too many stakes when building this. You want to use 1 and each end of the board and another at least every 2 feet. Pound the stake at least 6 inches in the ground. Repeat until the bed is completely enclosed.
-
Step 7
Adding the soil can be done in two ways. If you have a pickup truck, you can haul the dirt in yourself as long as you can find a place that sales the dirt by the scoop. $20 for a scoop is about the going price. You can figure that 1 scoop will be around 600 pounds of dirt. The other way is to visit your local nursery or home improvement center and buy the type of soil that you want. (In my case, I use topsoil and then treat it to a few bags of compost each year. This adds back the nutrients that gets taken out. I will not use chemicals to treat the bed.)
-
Step 8
Now that you have determined the soil, it is time to fill it in. For me, I laid 1 inch of soil and then laid out my potatoes. The rest of what I planted went much higher. Once the potatoes were laid, I then started adding more and more top soil until I had it filled. As we were filling it, we were also raking it down. This allowed for use to keep it even and loose.
-
Step 9
The last step that you want to do is to water the bed thoroughly. To do this, I recommend using a banana sprinkler. Have the bed water for 30 minutes to 1 hour. This will thoroughly saturate the bed and make sure that the plants you have planted will get the nutrients that they need.
Comments
Danniboi33 said
on 6/18/2009 Thanks for all the comments.
hannahv1 said
on 6/5/2009 Summer is alive and well. No better way to "go green" than building one of these beauts :) Eric Rasmussen writes about the satisfaction of completing the project at VolumeOne.org. Check it out here :http://tinyurl.com/lz389y
Foxility said
on 4/23/2009 I am starting a garden so any tips are great... thanks
Countrymom said
on 4/17/2009 Great article and 5*'s! Here is another article (I wrote) on growing potatoes that you might like. It works very very well for my family to grow them this way! http://www.ehow.com/how_4771240_grow-huge-potatoes-small-space.html
sonni57 said
on 4/17/2009 Thanks for the good instructions on how to build a raised garden bed.