Are you tired of eating all those non-organic vegetables from the market? Are you tired of spending a lot of money on buying vegetables every day? Do you want to have a lot of fun? If YES! This post is for you.
Growing your own vegetables in one of the most satisfying things ever. As I mentioned before, you don’t have to eat all those non-organic vegetables anymore. You can grow your own organic vegetables, plus you can save a lot of money by doing this.
If you are a beginner, starting a vegetable garden can be very overwhelming. But you don’t have to worry about this thing anymore. We are going to build our own vegetable garden in no time.
Why Raised Bed Vegetable Garden?
For beginners, raised bed gardening is easiest. It is one of the modern kind of gardening out there. There are so many benefits of growing your veggies in a raised bed. Like, you can amend and control your soil in a very easy manner, you don’t have to dig or till your soil each year.
There is a lot less problem with weeds in raised bed garden, you can make some changes to your soil or area to stop the germination of weeds for years, which I will explain later in this post.
The soil of the raised bed vegetable garden is usually pretty good as compared to ground soil, which makes watering very easy. If you have a back problem (back or lower back pain) you can build a raised vegetable garden with legs.
How To Start A Raised Bed Vegetable Garden?
Here are a few steps you need to follow to make a raised bed vegetable garden. Following these steps, you may have to spend some money on it, but it’ll worth it when you eat your own grown vegetable.
1: Select A Location.
This is the first and most important step. You need to select a site for your raised bed which receives at least 6 to 8 hours of sunlight. The more the better. Before selecting the site for your raised bed, you need to keep these things in mind.
If you are living in a cold climate area, 6-8 hours or more sunlight is better. If you are in a hot climate area, you will need some shadow to protect your plants from hot summer sunlight. So select a site according to your area’s climate.
2: Clean The Site:
Now you have selected a site for your garden, now its time to clean it. It is a very important step if your site has a lot of grass and weeds in it. Grass and weeds can grow through your raised bed soil and there will be a competition of space, water, sunlight, and nutrients between weeds and your plants.
First, you have to pull all the grass and weeds from your site. Or you can dig the site with a shovel and then clean the soil from all the weeds. If you wanted to go on the next level to save your raised bed from weeds, you can perform soil solarisation (a non-chemical process to clean the soil from weeds and pests). If your site is full of pests and weeds, you should perform soil solarisation for the sake of your bed.
Also Read: How To Perform Soil Solarisation?
3: Build Your Raised Bed.
At this step, you have to spend a little money and buy some lumber to build your bed. You can buy cheap lumber and assemble them using your tools to make your raised bed or you can buy ready-made raised beds from amazon here. 4 feet by 4 feet or 4 feet by 8 feet raised bed is excellent as a beginner.
If you don’t have money to buy lumber or raised bed, you can build one using bricks or cement block, or you can use old big tires and old plastic milk crates.
These all are the best DIY raised bed vegetable garden ideas. You don’t have to spend money to start, you can go with these DIY ideas and start your dream vegetable garden. Now you have no excuse. Later I will also mention few raised bed ideas to improve your experience of gardening.
4: Ideas For Seniors.
If you have back pain or you are in a wheelchair, and bending can be a problem for you, you can go with raised beds on legs. You can build a wooden raised bed with legs or a high waist raised bed.
There are lots of cheap raised beds on legs (made of recycled plastic) are available on the market. These raised beds have a perfect height for people with back problems. And you can grow easily almost everything in these beds.
Also Read: Plastic Raised Garden Beds On Legs – How To And What To Grow In Them
5: Bottom Of Raised Bed.
This is a very important step if you have a lot of weeds in your area. You can do different things to stop the weeds from growing in your raised bed. One of them is soil solarisation.
Put landscape fiber at the bottom of the raised bed, or put a lot of newspaper or cardboard. All of these things will help you with the weed problem.
Also Read: Everything You Need To Know – What To Put At The Bottom Of Raised Bed?
6: Add Soil In Your Raised Bed.
This is one of the best things about having a raised bed. You can play with the soil and add which soil recipe suits you better. For beginners, it can be hard to choose the best soil recipe. If you end up choosing the best soil mix, you can grow four-time more vegetables in your raised bed.
You can buy some compost, or make your own and mix it up with the potting soil to make a great mix for your bed. You can also mix compost with topsoil, which is not as good as potting soil.
For a raised bed with legs, you should only use potting soil. Topsoil is not gonna work for you. Plus, plants of these beds need ore nutrients, so potting soil can do the trick.
Read More: Best Raised Bed Gardening Soil Mix Recipe
7: Time To Grow.
Growing veggies is totally depend on your area and weather. You cannot grow summer vegetables in winter unless you have a greenhouse or you are growing indoors using LED grow lights.
First, select a seasonal vegetable to grow. Now you can start with seeds or you can buy seedlings from a nearby nursery. It can save you some time.
If you are going with seeds, I recommend you to sow the seeds in a seed starter and plant the seedlings in the raised bed. Going with seeds is better because you can grow a lot of new varieties that are not available at the nursery.
What To Grow In A Raised Bed Vegetable Garden?
As I mentioned above, growing vegetables in a raised bed are very easy and satisfying. You can grow these vegetables as a beginner and get some motivation to grow more.
1: Kale.
Kale is one of the easiest and healthy vegetables you can grow in a raised bed. Kale is a very strong vegetable to grow, you can grow it in autumn and in mild winter too.
2: Swiss Chard.
Swiss chard and kale, both of them are very strong and both can grow as companion plants in your raised bed. Both vegetables are great for your salad.
3: Carrots.
Carrots are another easy vegetable to grow as a beginner. Raised bed soil is perfect for growing carrots. For a raised bed with legs, choose a short variety of carrots. You can also grow store-bought carrots. Cut the bottom part of the carrot, put it in a glass of water. In a few days, the leaves will grow. Now plant it in your raised bed soil.
Read More: 14 Vegetables You Can Grow Again And Again
4: Tomatoes.
Every raised bed owner wanted to grow tomatoes. There are so many varieties you can grow in your bed. Tomatoes require at least 8 hours of sunlight. They need more water and more nutrients for better growth because tomato plants are heavy feeders. It is very important to space your tomato plants in a good manner for a good yield.
Also Read: How Many Tomato Plants In A 4×4 Raised Bed?
5: Lettuce.
Lettuce is an absolute charm to grow in your raised bed. It is easy to grow and lettuce plants look beautiful in a raised bed. You can grow lettuce from seeds, seedling or you can grow from store-bought lettuce. The method is the same as carrots.
How To Take Care Of Your Raised Bed Vegetable Garden?
Here are a few tips for your raised bed vegetables garden.
- Do not crowd your plants in raised beds. Although the soil in raised beds is a good kind, still you need to space them in a good way. Like, you cannot grow more than 5 plants of tomatoes in a 4×4 raised bed. If you crowd the plants, there will be the fight of sunlight, nutrients, moisture, and space between plants, which can cost you a good amount of yield at the end of the growing season.
- Use good and high-quality seeds or healthy seedling at the start of the season. Or all of your hard work and patience will be nothing.
- Use trellis or cages to support your plants like tomatoes and cucumbers. These plants can get a fungal infection when touches the soil.
- Spend 10 minutes every day in your garden to organize it, like removing weeds from your raised bed. Weeds are a bad dream for your plants.
- I know harvesting is very amusing and you want to harvest all your hard work as soon as possible. But you need to be careful about that, too early or late is not good. When fruits are fully ripened at plants, they are filled with nutrients and juices, that time is best for harvesting.
- Watering your raised bed garden can be tricky. There are a few things you need to keep in mind. Water your plants only when needed. When your raised bed soil feels dry, water the plants. Water deeply and slowly. Water your plants early in the morning or before sunset if you don’t have time early in the morning.
Also Read:
- Every Thing About Watering Your Plants In A Raised Bed Garden
- How To Keep Weeds Out Of Your Raised Bed
Few Ideas Of Raised Bed Vegetable Garden For Beginners.
Here are a few ideas of raised beds for you to take this experience to the next level.
1: Enclosed Raised Bed.
Do you have pests, birds, and rabbits around your garden? They can be a pretty big headache for you. Unless you build a frame around your raised bed. This frame can also have a door for you.
The best thing is you can build a U shaped raised bed vegetable garden and build a frame around it. You can buy this bed from amazon here.
2: Fence Around Bed.
This kind of frame also looks like an enclosed raised bed, but this is not all enclosed. Sure it will save your vegetables from dears, but birds can easily get through this fence. But it can save your vegetables from a lot of unwanted visitors.
3: Greenhouse Raised Bed.
This is a fantastic idea to grow veggies all year round, even in winter. A simple plastic sheet and few PVC pipes can do the trick. You can also use this idea to build a seed starter raised bed. This green will also save your plants from pests and a lot of diseases.
4: Square Foot Garden Bed.
This one is great to organize your raised bed in very little time. This idea is popular in modern time gardeners. You need to put a frame on your raised bed and you are good to go. Using this kind of gardening, you can grow a lot more vegetables spending less time organizing.
5: Elevated Raised Bed Vegetable Garden.
This one is also known as a raised bed on legs. This is an excellent idea for senior gardeners or gardeners with back pain. This kind of raised beds is great to grow small vegetables and to make an herb garden. They are also best for indoor gardening. The indoor herb garden on legs is an awesome idea. You can buy this bed from amazon here
6: Old Tires Raised Bed Vegetable Garden.
I already mentioned this one. Are old tires safe to grow vegetables? There is a big discussion about this question is going on. According to some experts, you can use these tires to grow veggies until they start to break down, which is a very long period of time. When they start to break down, do not use them to grow vegetables. You can still use them to grow ornamental plants.
7: Bricks Or Blocks Raised Bed Vegetable Garden.
Old tire raised beds and these ideas are an excellent choice if you are on a tight budget. Still, these ideas look pretty good and smart. If you have some bricks or blocks spare, you can build a high waist raised bed which can be a pretty good idea for senior fellas.
If you have any other ideas! Share it with us. And share this article with your friends and family. Sharing is caring.