Beautiful DIY Raised Garden Beds in 3 MIN! - How to Build

[Music] [Music] hey there guys today I'm going to show you how to make a simple durable and beautiful raised garden bed out of corrugated metal roofing and basic lumber I've made several variations of these beds over the years but this one is by far my favorite so let's get to building and then I'll try to answer any questions you guys may have about this type of bed after that alright so the first step in this project is pretty darn simple I'm beginning by making two sets of identically sized frames in this case I am using two by threes and I have mitered at the ends so that the corners fit together nicely and then I'm securing each corner with two three-inch decking screws with a pre-drilled holes once you have both sets you your frames built then on one set you are going to add a three inch by three inch corner roof flashing and these will be cut to whatever height that you want the beds to be in this case I have them cut at seventeen inches and I'm just securing them with standard roofing screws once I have those installed I then simply set that frame inside the other frame and also secure the other ends of the corner flashing with the roofing screws and at this point I am ready to put on my top cap and for this I am using two by fours again with mitered corners and there's really no exact science to this you just want to make sure that it overlaps on the inside of the frames by roughly five-eighths of an inch and that is just to allow the edge of the roofing metal to be covered up by the wood so it doesn't cut a finger and it's kind of covered up so it looks nice as well [Music] [Music] you now guys now we're in my garden and you can see what the beds look like with actual plants growing out of them in all I made three different sized beds those beds and back are roughly 7 foot long by 4 foot wide these two beds are about 5 foot long by 4 foot wide and then these two guys are roughly two and a half by two and a half and the reason I made those different sizes is because I just kind of thought it would look cool and that was the best way I could use the scrap metal that I had on hand and over here I have some beds that I built about six years ago in the exact same style as the ones you just saw me build so you can see what they look like with a little bit of age on them I think the only difference is that the tin in these is only 12 inches tall and I used cedar fence boards for the tops versus two by fours but I think going forward two by fours is definitely the way to go because these things get a little bit brittle and start to break over time so what we are growing in these beds most of the plants you see here that are visible are just things that we started in the greenhouse and then just transplanted here in the main garden once I had all of these beds finished and they're just the usual gardening plants that most people grow beans squash tomatoes peppers basically all of those things obviously these are all things that were grown in the greenhouse and had some level of maturity before they were brought out here and then over in those beds there I've got beans and squash that are grown from seed that just are barely starting to come up and I think that is pretty much it as for this little shade cloth right here if you're wondering about that that's just there temporarily I do plan on making another shade structure that will kind of go over here and I realize that may be kind of an odd sounding thing for some of you guys in the East Coast and the north and places where you don't want any shade on your gardens but out here in Arizona where we have at very little humidity the Sun is at full strength so there's really nothing too turned out even humidity filters son out to some degree so a little bit of shade really helps the plants do well and keep from getting too hot during our hottest months so I think that's it I'll probably end up showing you guys this garden again once I get everything finished as I mentioned I think in an earlier video I'm planning I'm basically redoing this whole garden area so those IBC totes that collect rainwater from the second greenhouse will eventually come closer to the fence or over on this side of the fence as well as those compost tumblers over there so I don't know and then I got fruit trees and different things like that those are plums and here are my peach trees and I have one apple there too but anyway that's pretty much it alright so now you've seen how I put the beds together and a little tour of what I've got growing at them now I'm gonna try to answer some of the most common questions that I'm guessing some of you and may have and questions that I have answered over the years regarding the corrugated metal in the garden bed by far the most common question that I am asked is if the metal sides when the Sun hits them if they transfer enough heat into the soil to damage the plants that are growing in there and I can say out of about eight years that I've been using beds like this I've never found that to be the case I live in Arizona where we have at no shortage of sunshine and very hot temperatures and it just has never really affected the plants that I have seen I think that's for a few different reasons one of them is that the the wooden framework kind of shades the metal as the Sun passes over during the day so it's never fully exposed number two the soil behind there is quite a bit of thermal mass and it would take quite a lot of direct sunshine to really affect it so maybe if the beds were three feet tall and you got a bigger metal face hating them maybe it could be an issue and then the other reason is because the metal is a vertical and if you've ever done any experiments with metal that is flat on the ground where Sun is hitting that perpendicular versus something that is vertical where it's kind of like a glancing blow there is quite a big difference in how much heat the metal absorbs so that's my answer for that one the next question I get quite often has to do with how long the metal in these beds will last and the best answer I can give for that is it heavily depends on the environment you're in here I would say the metal could last 15 to 20 years I've inspected some of the beds that I built a close to 8 years ago and there is a little bit of rust on the edges where I cut them but there's really no appreciable rust that is even coming close to rusting through now if you are in an environment maybe that is close to the ocean so you have salt in the air or just a really wet environment like Mississippi or Florida of course that I would imagine the lifespan of the metal would be much less maybe 7 years 10 years something like that but it just really depends on the environment you're in and the last question I get quite often has to do with the corrugated metal and what if any metal is leached into the soil of the garden bed and ultimately up taken by the plant and put in a tomato or a pepper or whatever you happen to be growing and I will just frame this by saying I'm not a scientist I haven't had my soil tested but I think it is very little and I would be much more concerned with all of the other toxins we were exposed to on a daily basis whether it is the lining on the inside of aluminum cans or the lining on canned foods or the off gassing of the plastics in your vehicle on a hot day everybody smelt that smell it's the new car smell well it's not a smell it's literally just chemicals and then maybe for those of us who are in very urbanized environments and heavy population environments all of the toxins that are coming out tailpipes and factories I would be concerned about 500 other pollutants before I would be concerned about anything growing in this bed that is getting up into the tomato that I'm eating on my salad tonight so I don't know that's the short answer is I really don't have a specific answer but that's just my thoughts but I would say if it concerns you definitely do your research and figure out what is comfortable for you before you build something like this all right guys that is gonna do it for this video sorry for the long winded responses to the questions at the end but those are just those type of questions that I thought would be better served by verbal responses versus me responding to comments and emails and my fingertips bleeding from the amount of words that I would have to type to describe it properly but anyway I appreciate you guys watching give it a thumbs up if you liked this check me out on Instagram and all those things and I will see you on the next one

Channel: homesteadonomics

Views: 1,445,328

Keywords: raised beds, raised bed gardening, raised garden beds, how to build a garden bed, how to make, homesteadonomics, diy raised garden bed

Id: YtnArAl617k

Length: 11min 37sec (697 seconds)

Published: Fri May 22 2020