Living in the Missouri Ozarks is all about raised bed gardening. We quickly found out that first year on our land that without raised beds, rocks was about all we were going to grow. Through our years in the Ozarks, we have learned how to make simple raised garden beds from local resources. And we have also learned to value more expensive options that will last much longer and make gardening a bit easier. Join me as I share our simple raised bed gardening journey.
Why raised Garden beds
As I just mentioned, rocks “grow” quite well where we live. But that’s not our only gardening challenge. We also have torrential rain storms that cause water to flood through our kitchen garden carrying our soil away and leaving weed seeds behind. Raised garden beds help solve both problems.
What we learned from our first year gardening
Our first year gardening in the Ozarks started out wonderfully. We were so excited to jump right in and grow our own veggies right on top of what had been cattle pasture for years. Native rocks came in handy for two of our beds, free cants from the local mill for another bed, and the rest of the beds were in ground. We used the lasagna gardening method of putting down paper or cardboard to smother the weeds and then added a little of this and that on top to grow in. Woodchips were used in the pathways to help keep the weed pressure down.
But in the end, our garden became a weed jungle nightmare. Not even I wanted to have anything to do with it by the time August rolled around. The raised beds performed well, but we didn’t put enough woodchips down in the pathways, so it was a challenge to even get to the beds to tend them.
We decided against raised beds (temporarily)
Even though our raised beds performed better than our in ground beds those first couple of years, we decided to get rid of all hard edges in the garden, other than the perimeter beds. Before you think we were crazy, let me explain. Pulling weeds out from under the edges of rocks and heavy wooden cants is NOT fun. No, it’s not just NOT fun, it’s pretty much impossible. So for a couple of years, we tried “raised beds” without edges. And honestly, if our garden wasn’t on a slope and we didn’t get heavy rains, that’s the way I would go. But we very quickly lost our beds to the flood waters. The tidy beds pictured above didn’t last.
Simple Raised Garden beds to the rescue
As so the edges came back to the garden because I would rather not see my garden float away every year during flood seasons. So now lets talk about the pros and cons of all the materials we have used in our gardens to create raised beds.
Free oak cants from the local mill
The free heavy oak cants from the local mill work great if you tuck cardboard under the edges to prevent the weeds. They are an incredible bug habitat. Our son Joshua has spent many hours observing various bugs in the cants around the garden. They create a handy useable edge as well. I often stand or sit on them for various reasons. But, their down side is that they only last for about 3 or 4 years. They brake down rather quickly.
Cheap oak cutoffs
Our local mill also has rough cut oak cutoffs that we are able to get for almost free. They come in various lengths and widths, making them both versatile and challenging to build with. Many of them are thick enough to work in place of 2 x 4s as form boards for cement. We used them for our annual beds that we plan on creating cobblestone pathways through. By the time they wear out, we hope to have our cobblestone in place and the boards can be pulled out.
Rough cut cedar boards
We decided to use cedar boards for our walls in our home addition and ended up purchasing extra because they work great for garden beds. We were able to get them for a good price from a friend who does custom cabinetry. The boards are about an inch and a half thick. Cedar lasts a bit longer than oak, so we won’t have to replace them as often.
Simple Raised Garden Beds Of Native rock
We live on the edge of a year round creek. Needless to say, we have rocks aplenty. They look lovely and natural around our perennial garden beds. They help keep the pea gravel from our pathways from mixing with the soil in the beds. And most of the rocks are small enough that we can lift them to pull weeds if needed. In areas where we used larger rocks, we put down extra cardboard and filled the pathways with a deeper layer of pea gravel to help prevent future weed problems. The one downside to using rocks is that they periodically have to be lifted as they like to sink into the soil and pea gravel over time.
long lasting VEGEGA beds
Now that we’ve replaced a few of our cheap raised garden beds, we know that cheap is not always the best way to go. If you have the finances to invest in the longevity of your garden, we can highly recommend VEGEGA stainless steel garden beds. They are built to last for 20+ years and are super easy to put together. They keep your soil where it belongs and help keep bad bugs out. VEGEGA beds come in all shapes and sizes to fit any garden plan. There customer service is great. Yes, I am an affiliate for VEGEGA garden beds, but I can honestly say that I can’t think of any downside to these beds.
If you want to invest in long lasting garden beds, enjoy 10% off your order by using this link and code: ROOTS.
what to fill your beds with? It’s Simple.
There are countless recipes out there for what to fill raised garden beds with. My favorite so far comes from Mel Bartholomew’s book titled, “All New Square Food Gardening“. It’s just equal parts by volume of three ingredients: peat moss, vermiculite or perlite, and compost. He recommends using a variety of different types of compost to get more diversity of organisms and nutrients in your soil.
Pin It For Later
Share your favorite garden bed material
I would love to know what your favorite raised garden bed material is. Please drop me a comment below.
Blessings,
Carrie
Leave a Reply