Temporary Raised Beds

Megan Venturella

Saw this video and thought it was a brilliant way to add raised beds. Very inexpensive and so great if you aren’t sure where you want them yet or just need to get something big going quickly with zero building skills (like me).

https://youtu.be/_1ykegOWgG4

Merin Porter

Hey, that's cool! Love the way you could move these around the yard from season to season, if needed. I could also see these being used annually for pumpkin/watermelon patches. Then when you're done harvesting, you could just break everything down for the winter. Nice!

MaryRowe

What a great idea for a temporary garden, or starting new garden beds as he did, by taking it apart when the boxes give out. I wonder though, if it's necessary to fold the excess chicken wire under the box. I think I'd leave the excess over the top of the box, maybe fold it against itself for more rigidity, or shape it into a dome, as some protection from critters grazing the vegies.

Tave

Wow! I love that idea.

VermontCathy

Yes, that will work. It's one of the suggestions in the _Year Round Vegetable Gardener book_, which really opened my eyes to what is possible outside the primary growing season.

Another option is to simply rake or hoe the soil into a raised bed with no physical boundaries, no wood, no hay, just soil. At the end of the season, you can rake it flat and smooth again if you want.

vickeym

This is fantastic and quite timely. We will be clearing an area to put in a garden this spring. With everything frozen deep before the snows came it will be awhile before we get to a real "spring" here. I have been trying to figure out how I would get the area cleared, build raised beds and still get it all done in time to plant for this season. Now I know how to make the raised beds faster to make for now. Can replace with more permanent beds as they start wearing down.

My husband will not be able to help me much as we have a few BIG projects he will be working on. We got approved for a food security grant we applied for, but it is new to our state and took them so long to get through everything we lost most of the time we could have worked on it. Since it involves building 2-3 new large chicken coops, a building for incubation and brooding the baby chicks and adding fencing, we can't start until after the ground thaws for most of it.

There were two catches in the plan... we have to pay for everything out of pocket first and they will reimburse us, and we have to have everything we were approved for done by Sept 15, 2022.That means if we are lucky April to September with just him and I doing all the work and I work full time off the farm as well.

Megan Venturella

@MaryRowe Oh my goodness what a great suggestion! I might be able to protect the plants too

@Merin Porter I hadn’t thought of building these for a pumpkin patch or watermelons. Such a good idea! I wanted a new raised bed for nettles, that was my original interest, but I always plant too much of everything and run out of room for the plants that spread.

@vickeym Wow it sounds like you guys are taking on a lot. I hope it goes well- you’ll have to update us on your projects. Whew!

MaryRowe

I am definitely trying this. Saving my Misfits Market boxes--they should be about the right size and make the arrangement easy, being all nice and uniform size. Also that inner layer of compostable insulation they have should be great for water retention in dry spells, and maybe reinforce the box enough to get an extra season out of it.

When scrounging around my place for chicken wire to re-use, I came across a roll of heavy duty plastic fencing that I got on sale cheap some place, then never used when I realized how easily the local critters could get through it. But I bet it would work for this, and it's cheaper than chicken wire too.

Just waiting for better weather now--this afternoon it's 18 degrees outside. I think it's still snowing, but hard to tell--the wind is howling and whipping the snow up into a whiteout. Definitely a soup and hot chocolate day1

Lisa K

Thanks @Megan Venturella, great video and it gave me all kinds of ideas!

MissPatricia

What a great idea! I had seen using a cardboard box, but putting the chicken wire around it, gives it more rigidity. Would be great when you want to contain a plant somewhat as with watermelon, or potatoes, or many others.