Why You Should Build Your Own Raised Garden Bed

Having a garden can be one of life’s sweetest simple pleasures. Blooming botanicals in the springtime bestow beauty upon our eyes, the process itself provides a calming hobby with opportunities to learn, and the final phase presents the fruits of your labor (literally!) There are many kinds of gardens that can be created to enhance your home, including vegetable gardens, flower gardens, herb gardens, and butterfly gardens, to name a few. They can act as a focal point of your patio during gatherings, or they can become the main event if you decide to host a lovely garden party! Did you know that you can easily create and maintain these types of gardens in a raised garden bed?

The Benefits of Raised Garden Beds

Raised garden beds are structures designed to lift your garden off the ground by about six to 32 inches. The main purpose of these structures is to maximize space in your yard or patio, but there are many more ways that raised garden beds can elevate your garden. Here’s why you should build your own raised garden bed:

Enhanced Soil Makes for an Enchanted Garden

One of the most pronounced benefits of raised garden beds is the opportunities they provide to enhance the soil. Since you’re constructing them and filling them with soil, you can choose the best potting soil for outdoor plants– which is very advantageous for certain garden types. If you were working with a ground garden, you would have to settle for whatever the native soil conditions are. The ability to select the right soil and incorporate raised garden bed soil layers is a huge time-saver, as it can take years to build, mulch, and enrich native soil. Enrich the soil to create a foundation for lush and bountiful flora! 

The soil in a raised garden bed will naturally preserve its quality over time because it is encased. This leads to far less soil compaction from being walked on, and less soil erosion from rain and snow. Any soil placed in the bed will stay in the bed. Raised beds also aid with soil drainage, which can be essential in very wet regions. Precipitation will drain out the bottom of the bed, preventing plants from getting waterlogged and making a muddy mess inside. Your plants will be jolly and jubilant soaking up the sun and nutrients inside their little setup! 

Economize Space for as Many Plants as Possible

Perhaps the most functional and fabulous perk of using a raised garden bed is that you can set them up just about anywhere. The square shapes of most raised garden beds are space efficient for any yard, plus there are tall raised garden bed kits that can be stacked on top of each other for extra elevation. For placement location, it doesn’t matter if the ground is concrete, rocky, or contains poor soil- just take your most ergonomic garden tools off the rack and begin. Your garden will thrive once you select the proper soil and create the foundation. This is especially helpful if your outdoor space has shade issues, with limited sunny spots. Even if the ground isn’t ideal, you can set up your raised garden bed in that one sunny corner, to ensure that your plants will have proper sustenance. If flowers could smile, yours certainly would while inside these raised beds! 

Flexibility Allows for Creative Planning and Inspiration

The ability to place your raised garden bed anywhere opens up a lot of opportunities for planning and organization of your garden or space. With raised beds, you know the dimensions of each encasement, what kinds of plants will reside in them, and what their purposes are. You can search for raised bed garden layout pictures and ideas to stir up some inspiration for your own garden vision! This will help you figure out the flow of your garden, and how people will move through it. With the flexibility and easy planning provided by raised garden beds, you can create the garden or patio of your dreams. 

Increase Longevity and Precious Time

Lifetime Raised Garden Beds are made from UV-Protected High-Density Polyethylene, so they won’t warp, mold or decay like wood might. This will help your garden last longer, meaning you won’t need to redo the process every year, saving you time and resources overall. They’re also very easy to assemble, which saves additional time. This time is precious- raised garden beds add time to your plants’ lives, and save time in yours! 

All Ease, No Weeds

Apart from the easy assembly, tall raised garden beds continue to make your life easier once they’re all set up. Their height makes plants more accessible to gardeners, allowing them to reach in from all sides. They can also be easier on the body since you can simply kneel down or sit on a comfortable garden seat and reach into the bed without leaning over. Gardening for hours at a time can be great exercise and movement for the body, but not if you’re hunched over the whole time. Avoiding this will help to prevent any bending-induced back pain.  

Weeding raised beds becomes less arduous due to easier access, less effort, and the lack of bending over required. The height of tall raised garden beds makes it more difficult for weeds to form. Any seeds normally carried by animals and winds are less likely to make their way into a raised bed. Think of the elevated frames as the fortress to the castle that is your majestic garden!

Protection for the Plants

Not only do raised garden beds protect against weeds but pests too. Pets and other animals that normally tend to walk across newly planted areas will walk around raised beds, rather than jump up onto them. It’s much easier to train them not to jump up on a raised surface than it is to keep them off solid ground. Gophers and voles that tunnel from underground can be deterred by the hardware cloth beneath the raised bed. Raised beds also deter rabbits from jumping up into gardens. While you may envision hosting a garden party out by the patio in the springtime, you don’t want these critters having a party in your garden! 

Overall, raised garden beds avoid most kinds of damage to plants, whether from lawn tools, dragging garden hoses, or being walked on. Tall raised garden beds avoid these occurrences with their barriers and clearly defined beds. 

Plant with Purpose for a Most Fruitful Harvest!

Raised garden beds will allow you to not only prolong the life of your garden but to extend the growing season too. The boxes help the beds retain heat, meaning that plants will thaw earlier in the spring and stay warm later into the fall. This can be especially important in cold regions. Snow also tends to melt first in raised beds during the winter or after a light snowfall. This added warmth can amount to an extra two or three weeks at the end of each growing season when raised garden bed soil layers are warm enough to grow in.

Raised garden beds yield more time and more space! They allow for more intensive planting- you don’t have to allot space for pathways to enter the garden. This means you can plant in every square inch of the bed, right up to the border. The increased timeframe and surface area provided by raised garden beds make for a more robust harvest!

Conserve Resources; Keep Them in the Garden Bed

Any amendments or additions you incorporate into the soil are conserved because they won’t escape through erosion or runoff. Everything stays in the garden bed as intended! 

How to Build Your Own Raised Garden Bed

Now that you’ve discovered the benefits of planting in a raised garden bed, here’s how you can build one, quickly and easily with the Lifetime Raised Garden Bed Kit:

1. Map out your garden layout and envision your outdoor space. Browse raised bed garden layout pictures and ideas for inspiration!
2. Find a good location with appropriate sunlight and level ground. Make adjustments to the ground if you need to by removing any unwanted rocks, gravel, or brush. 
3. Seal holes in the frame with the eight plug pins included in the kit.
4. Slide and lock the frame panels together to form a square.
5. Lock the base together with four corner brackets.
6. Line the bottom with landscape fabric to keep weeds out. 
7. Add the high-quality soil of your choice to create raised garden bed soil layers.
8. Plant your desired seeds and plants. 
9. Grab your hand-held gardening tools and enjoy the process of gardening.
10. Throw a garden party, relax by the foliage, and admire the beauty of your botanical world!