Last Updated on April 19, 2022 by Real Men Sow
Building and making raised beds for your vegetable garden is an exciting and challenging experience for gardeners who want to take on extra projects. This is a guide to growing a small 4ft by 4ft raised bed from scratch. This bed may be small but it has the advantage of being able to reach the center from all sides of the bed.
Steps to Make Raised Beds for Better Gardening Practices
Prepare The Ground for Your Raised Beds
Choose an area of your garden that receives plenty of sun. Start by laying cardboard over the area the new bed will occupy. This will help to clear all the grass and weeds beneath.
Choose a sunny area for raised beds
The area where you’ll place the raised bed should receive plenty of sunshine. Lay cardboards around the area of your choice, doing this would clear all grass and weeds underneath it.
The cardboards should be clean, without any tape or staples. This is because the cardboard is supposed to rot down into the soil over time. You may overlap them so that there will be no gaps between them.
Making The Raised-Bed
Cut your wood planks at equal lengths of 4ft. Drill two pilot holes in each plank to make screwing them together easier. Keep in mind that one end of each plank would overlap the other. Screw the walls together using long screws to properly secure them.
Choose the right compost
Filling the bed is the last thing to do to finish creating a raised bed. Garden compost will give a nutrient-rich and moisture-retentive layer for your plant’s roots to grow down into. Mix the compost with enriched topsoil if your compost is too lumpy for your liking.
Put chippings into the raised beds
Laying bark chippings directly onto the cardboard between the beds can give you a clear pathway or you can cut the excess cardboard to have a grass path between your raised beds.
Once you’ve finished filling the bed in, you can start sowing and planting. Tell us about what you’re planning to plant on your raised-bed in the comments!
