Learn to build DIY cedar raised beds for cheap! These beds came out to less then $18 per box! Depending on where you find your cedar, maybe even cheaper!
This is our first gardening season at our new homestead and we learned a LOT in just a few short months! First of all, the location for our main garden gets way too much shade. To remedy that, we are having some pines cut this winter.
Secondly, we are in a very busy season of life and tilling and hoeing weeds in a garden every day just does not fit into our current schedule. That time will eventually come, but with a fixer upper home and a baby under age 1, that time is not now.
Therefore, this year, my appreciation for raised beds has grown tremendously!
We had one raised bed at our very first home, mainly because we didn’t have room for a large garden. Weeding is so much more manageable and less overwhelming in this controlled space. I am not sure why we didn’t just begin here and wait a few years for the big garden!
The brick Wall around our raised beds
When we moved here, there was a metal building used for a home office, on this garden site. Once we removed this building and the brick skirt around it, the perfect concrete foundation for this brick wall was left for us to use.
We love brick sidewalks and steps, so incorporating this brick wall around our beds really ties everything on our property together.
I also cannot wait to plant zinnias, cosmos, and roses all around its perimeter next year.
It is simply a beauty to drive up our driveway and be welcomed by this little brick walled garden.
Cedar raised beds Garden
We knew we wanted to go with cedar as our wood choice for our raised beds because it is naturally rot-resistant and not treated.The natural oils in the wood keep it from rotting as it is weathered. Treated lumber could contaminant the crops and soil in the raised beds, essentially harming the food we would be eating.
We looked at several local Lowe’s stores for cedar fence posts which are only a couple dollars each, but unfortunately none of the stores within a two hour distance had them in stock.
My husband then checked with several sawmills and found some very rough cut cedar that we were able to cut down to make our raised beds.
Why use raised beds in your garden
As I mentioned before, the weeding is much more manageable in a raised bed, since there is a contained space and they are also raised up off the ground and more easily accessible.
Raised beds also keep kids and dogs from running across the freshly tilled and planted garden. This was. a major issue with our large backyard garden. We have just accepted that our dogs are going to try to dig in the fresh dirt until we get a fence built. With raised beds this was not an issue.
Raised beds also allow you to fill them with whatever soil you want. We used a mixture of compost, top soil, bark, and sand. This ensures that good soil will be available for our crops.
How deep should raised beds be?
Ideally a raised bed should be 6-12″ deep to allow for the roots to develop a good system in the soil. Our raised beds were 12″ tall with about 9-10″ of soil.
Watch the tutorial and mini tour of our raised bed garden
Materials needed
I am listing the material for ONE raised bed, we built four for this project. Just multiply these numbers by how many raised beds you are planning to build.
- 4- 6 foot pieces of rough cut Cedar boards (for the long sides)
- 4- 3 foot pieces of rough cut Cedar boards (for the short sides)
- 4 landscaping timbers OR 1×2 scrap lumber (to secure the corners)
- Screws
- Skill Saw
- Drill
how to build a DIY cedar raised bed Garden
- Cut all cedar to the specified lengths.
- Take two pieces of the 6′ long cedar and place them beside each other. Drill the corner post into the two boards. Repeat on the other end.
- Next, place two of the 3′ long cedar boards next to the corner post you just drilled, creating a 90 degree angle.
- Continue all the way around until all boards are attached to a corner post. (It is very helpful to have two doing this people)
- Our corner posts stuck out at the bottom of our cedar walls, so we dug holes in our garden to sink them down. This created a surface for our raised beds to sit flush on the ground.
- Put the raised beds in place, add the soil, and plant crops.
- We added pea gravel around our four raised beds inside our brick wall.
What we planted this year in our raised beds
- Tomatoes
- Pumpkins
- Jalapeno Peppers
- Bell Peppers
Once we harvest the peppers in a few weeks, we will be adding brussels, broccoli, and cabbage for our fall harvest.
Other Diy projects around the harris homestead
Pin for later
