Easy Vegetable Gardening In Raised Beds

Vegetable Gardening in Raised Beds

Gardening in raised beds has vegetable gardening in raised beds has become very popular in recent years. There is a large movement of people who want to connect back to the land and grow their own vegetables. Their reasons may vary from wanting to be healthier to wanting to save money possibly to be more ecologically sound. Whatever the reason one of the best ways to get started gardening in your backyard and growing your own vegetables at home is by using the raised bed technique. While there is some initial upfront cost once you get started vegetable gardening in raised beds are you it is very inexpensive and a healthy hobby to have. In this article you'll find out about all of the tools and the benefits to starting your own raised bed vegetable gardening system.

Saving Money

One of the biggest benefits of having your own vegetable garden is that after the initial setup and cost you will start reaping the benefits saving money within your first year of harvest. If you want to know how much you will save just look at your weekly grocery bill and add up all of the vegetables that you buy each week. Times that number by at least 48 and you have your average amount of money spent per year on vegetables. This is the amount that you can be saving by using your front lawn or even your backyard has a vegetable gardening patch.

Living Healthier

Another great benefit of growing your own vegetables is that you will be living a more healthy and natural lifestyle. Just think of all the fresh organic produce that you will be going in your backyard that will come fresh to your table full of vitamins and essential nutrients instead of being chock-full of chemicals and pesticides. You will get the highest amount of nutrition from every meal that you eat the lowest amount of harmful chemicals into your body. Furthermore, by eating vegetables regularly in your diet you will quickly lose weight lower your cholesterol and improve your blood pressure.

How to Get Started

You might be wondering how can you get started and what tools and equipment will you need to start your own raised bed vegetable garden. While in this article we will give you some of the different options to can purchase. With basic tools that you probably already have around the house and some simple lumber or even prebuilt raised bed kits you can quickly be up and gardening in as little as one weekend. There many different options choose from and of course will depend largely on the amount of money you plan spend on the project. The more money you spend the longer term your materials will be and the less amount of building you will have to do. So if you want to already done for you solution that plan spend a little bit more but if you want to roll your sleeves up and a DIY solution that you will be doing a bit of the dirty work yourself but of course saving money.

The Done for You Solution

As you can see below there is a wide selection of many different raised bed kits that are already done for you. Selecting one of these kits from your local big box store or better yet shopping online you can get started right away. Some of the differences you'll find in raise the kids are in the materials they used to make it. Many are made from lumber typically Cedar and other weather hardy woods. However, all would will tend to rot after years of usage. So if you want something with a more permanent lifecycle then you might choose to pay a little bit more and get a plastic raised bed kit. Then at the top of the line of done for you raised bed solutions are ones that come with greenhouses attached to them. The choice is yours and really depends on what you have budgeted for your gardening area.

The DIY Solution

The do-it-yourself solution is a great option if you are trying to save money and are on a tight budget. Simply by some 2 x 6 lumber in four foot lengths take them home and assemble them into boxes using a simple screw through the corners. A nice addition to the do-it-yourself box would be to staple a weed barrier across the bottom. This will help stop weeds from forming and save you time and frustration in your new vegetable garden. Another option many DIY’rs like to do is something called sheet mulching. Sheet mulching is the practice of putting down layers of cardboard over top of the existing grass or weeds or dirt and then filling the area above the cardboard with soil and possibly even woodchips or other weed barriers. In the case of raised beds you would put your cardboard down first place your raised bed on top and then fill in the raised bed with soil. Sheet mulching is an inexpensive way to build your soil while also blocking out any potential weeds from growing through the middle of your vegetable garden.

The Ultimate Garden Soil

One of the most important parts of your raised bed garden will be the soil that you put into your raised beds. If you are really trying to save money and don't have any extra to spend on your project then of course you can use your existing soil. However, by using your existing soil you will have to spend a lot more time weeding and also will get less than ideal results from your vegetable garden. Your existing garden soil is probably not sufficient to grow very healthy vegetables. Most soil can take years and lots of hard work to build up the nutrients and essential structure to grow the most effective vegetables. However if you have a little bit of extra money you can easily start with the perfect soil by buying lots of organic compost, Peet Moss or coconut choir, and some vermiculite. In fact the ideal mixture is about one third of each ingredient.

The Essential Tools

With the exception of the soil in the raised bed there are really no other expensive essential tools. Since you will not be digging in the dirt but instead use the soil and compost that you imported into your boxes there really is no digging nor rototilling and therefore the only tools you might need are a pair of gloves and possibly a trowel. You can pick up a watering can and simple garden trowel from the dollar store.

Last but not least of course you will need a variety of seeds to plant unless you decide to go with plan starts. For your first year, the easiest and quickest way to get started is to just use starts from your local nursery. While this is a bit more expensive it will ensure that you have immediate success and can start eating the vegetables fresh from your garden right away. After a year or two you might consider adding onto garden. You can do this by adding further boxes or you might decide to start raising your own transplants from seed.

The process of growing your own vegetables in the comfort of your own home can be a nice relaxing and very healthy hobby.