How to Build a Raised Bed in your Garden - Simple DIY

writes out in today's video we're going to be building a raised bed to improve the current flower bed [Music] so we start off by removing all the plants from the flower beds we decided to keep the bigger plants and to get rid of the smaller plants we'd put bed and plants in there to start the season but we decided against it once we finally put them in once the raised bed was complete we just used a regular Garden Fork just to loosen the soil just to make sure we could pull the plants out without damaging any of the roots so there we go we've taken all of the plants out of the flower bed and it's time now to actually map out exactly where the raised bed is going to be now before I actually map out where the bed's going to be I just want to explain just briefly why I'm putting a raised bed in rather than just leaving it as a regular flower beds now the reason being is because the soil that we have here at the moment is quite clay heavy and it's also not very deep as well it's quite shallow and the reason for that is that the drain down here is connected to a French drain that runs underneath this clay soil here and it means that once those roots the plants go into the ground they don't really have very far to go until they hit a big massive layer of stones with that French drainage so by building the raised beds we're going to add an extra about 400 mL of soil beneath those plants so it's a much healthier environment for them to grow in now we are going to be bringing this bed slightly further across and we're hopefully going to be able to line it up roughly with this grid here so we're going to be losing maybe 200 mil either side of this because we've got to take into account the thickness of the sleeper on this side and also of the thickness of the sleeper here too so it's probably going to be the exact same sort of depth that we have currently but it's just going to be shifted over ever so slightly so I'm going to run a string line up here now so that we can Mark out the boundaries of where the raised bed is going to be [Music] thank you [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] so what I'm going to be doing is digging out this small little trench now I've put about 120 ml of a gap between each of the sides because the sleepers are 100 Mil wide and what I'm going to do is I'll fill this trench with stone so I'll have some gravel going all the way through the trench so that means that the sleepers won't actually be sitting directly onto the soil they'll be sitting on some Stones where the water can drain straight through The Matrix actually cut through this quite easy and I think the reason is is because this soil here is really nice rich topsoil whereas over the side there's a lot of clay so I don't think it'll be as easy when it goes to do the same thing at the back but with the nice top soil there just cutting through really simply [Music] thank you [Music] so we're not going to be taking the sleepers right up to the actual fence here what we are going to do is we're going to bring them right up to where this poster is here so the distance from this post to the front of the sleepers is around about 82 centimeters so what I'm going to do is I'm going to cut one of these sleepers down now to about 72 centimeters and we'll start to put the frame together before I put any more of the gravel in now cutting the sleepers down to size is probably the hardest part of this entire project and the reason being is the fact that the sleepers weigh quite a lot you know they are quite heavy and doing this on your own is a bit of a tough task they are the same sleepers that are used to build the retaining wall that's also in the garden which was at the start of my garden renovation a couple of years ago and I had help when I was building that wall so you know doing it on your own is a bit of a task it is doable like what was shown in this video but you will see there are times where I did rely on somebody else to come and give us a little bit of a hand when it came to putting a few bits in place you can see that I've put each of the sleepers in sort of the rough position that they're going to be in and this will just get an idea of the actual level of the grounds on all four sides but also just to get an idea of the relative size now that the sleepers are in place and at this point I cut the posts down as well and these are used for inside of the actual raised bed just to keep everything nice and square but also to connect the top layer with the bottom layer although the sleepers are treated any cuts that you do make you do need to make sure that you're actually protecting the actual cut ends of the woods so any sort of wood treatment from the likes to B and Q two station Screwfix will do the job foreign [Music] day when I was doing this project so the actual ends dry quite easy Once actually put them out to sit in the Sun [Music] thank you writes out the woods has now been treated and it is time to start putting the actual base of the raised bed together so what I'm going to do is I'm actually going to create the bottom layer of the frame I'm going to stand it upright tilt it back down into the space and then I'll see exactly where the high spots are the low spots are I can then level the perimeter of the raised bed and get the stones down and have it nice and perfectly level and these are the screws I'm going to be using so they've got 150 mil in length and that's hopefully going to keep this nice and sturdy together because they are the same screws that I used when we built the retainer wall now I'm going to be very honest in this video putting the actual bottom layer of the frame together it was quite tough to begin with you'll see that I try to actually do it on the grass and then I actually brought the wood over to the patio to make it a little bit easier to actually put things together with having that level surface it did make it hard when it came to put on the actual frame over where we wanted the raised bed to be because it weighs an absolute ton but it was definitely the best Port of Call I've never proclaimed to be an expert Carpenter but when it comes to taking on projects like this even though you might have a plan in mind you've really got to think on your feet and adapt as you go to whatever makes the job a little bit easier you can see that it just use a basic clamp to hold the pieces of woods together just to get the first initial couple of screws in and then once those are in I could remove the clamp and just add all the extra screws in just to make sure everything was really securely put together [Music] [Music] [Music] thank you foreign so before putting the actual frame of the raised bed in place I made sure just to dig the trench and put the stones around the entire perimeter of where it was going to be to make sure that the raised bed wasn't sitting on any exposed soil I want to say this thing way that's on it really really did so you would definitely need help if you're going to be building it you know in a separate place and moving it over to somewhere else I did pack some Stones underneath but I didn't quite film that part so I made sure that it was really secure before any of the additional sleepers went into place and then the next part was relatively straightforward all I had to do was just make sure everything was clamped and secure in place and just get everything screwed together tightly you'll notice from lots of these shots of actually measuring and cotton sleepers you know the usual phrases measured twice cut once I think I might have you know measured about 30 times before actually cutting anything but you know if you're new to DIY or you don't do a lot of carpentry your best bet is just to measure as many times as you can just to make sure you get it really really right because once you cut into that wood there is no going back and your bone is going to commit to the size that you've got it does have to take a few of the pieces back just to take off you know the odd Mill or two just to make sure it's really really perfectly square and so that the pieces will actually fit flush together but sometimes it is just better to take that little bit extra turn to get things right to make sure you're going to be happy with your project in the long term [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] of the raised bed is complete now it did take a lot longer than I originally anticipated it was more difficult as well um purely because of the weight of the sleepers and doing this on your own is probably not the best thing to do because it is quite soft particularly if you've got little snow carpentry experience like what I do you know this video is for someone who is neutral this who isn't a carpenter by trades so you know it is possible but it's just going to take a little bit of time now all the grass that I dug up before to replace with these Stones down here is in the center and also some of the soil from the back too so I've recycled a little bit of that but before I put any more organic matter into this what I'm going to do is I'm going to be protecting the inside walls I'm not going to be using any landscaping fabric but what I am going to be using is this paint now this is black bitumen paint and what this is for is just to protect the woods from the moisture that's going to be in all the soil now it's not going to protect it completely in terms of you know it's not going to last forever what it is going to do it's going to increase the longevity of this raised bed I ordered the brush to go with this and I didn't realize the actual size of it which is pretty much the size of the uh the tint itself this is a tar brush I've never used it before I'm going to give it a quick go with this if it doesn't quite work I'll get a regular brush out but you know we live and learn and we'll see what the dealer is right there we go black lithium bitumen paints however you pronounce it get this cracked the old trusty kitchen knife now I have no clue what type of paint this is going to be for first time using this sort of stuff no doubt there'll be someone in the comments going oh you got the wrong one it's only going to make it last an extra year or two let's yeah but it's going to last about five to seven years this if not even longer um if you say it's not gonna well let's tune back in in about five to seven years and we'll see what the dealio is kind of get into the tin oh wow it's potions try this big Dino brush that's what the dealio is so I hate this brush already because it's not going to do the job I don't know do stick with it do we change I don't know I don't have the answers I don't want to dip it straight in like a massive dip because I think it's just going to absorb half the tin and it's all going to be stuck inside this brush let me get another one and we'll see a bit of a comparison between the two now this is the brush that I treated the ends of the woods with so it's got a bit of a you know wood treatments and stuff on there but you know I'm treating the woods so it's not really gonna No One's Gonna Die are they whoa look at that let's have a go with this oh that looks in is it better there's the tar brush better I don't know what I can say is I'm not sure I'm gonna have enough paints let's see let's be optimistic and let's hope and pray it's about five o'clock in the evening and I'm not going to Total Station tonight it's not like regular paint it's quite thick so there's a lot of resistance against the brush it's the bristles [Music] thank you foreign [Music] any soil into the raised bed I decided to use what was in the wheelie bin just to fill the first initial layer so inside the wheelie bin was around about two weeks worth of grass clippings that I'd taken from all the Lawns and the thing absolutely stunk but it's a half decent job actually filling the bottom layer and then I got on with the roll-on beds and borders topsoil it's their compost mix that I decided to fill the rest of the raised bed with it's quite expensive but you know you get what you pay for with these sorts of jobs you can do this in much cheaper ways but I went with the book by purely for convenience thank you [Music] actually finished the raised bed by around about 8pm the night before so the next morning we got up and we decided to get the plants in and like I said at the start of the video we stuck with the bigger plants just to you know make sure they would fill that part of the fence they would go over and give us a little bit of privacy and one student the raised bed was complete foreign [Music] bed is complete now it did take a lot longer than planned to actually put this together but it was absolutely worth taking the time to get it right so you can see we've kept most of the plants that were in the original flower beds we've got two red robins on the ends a few other plants that are going to hopefully grow above the fence given us a little bit more privacy and all the plants have so much more soil now to actually get their Roots developed into now if you are going to take on a project like this yourself just a few things to consider the first one is the time it takes to actually complete so make sure you give yourself at least an entire day to get everything boxed off I started this at about maybe midday yesterday and I had to finish off by putting the plants in today so it was quite you know a big task all told but again that's just because of the limited experience I have working with but if you are someone who's used to building things like this and all sorts of other DIY projects then you're probably going to be fine and I'll also talk as well a little bit about cost now for the actual wood itself that's the sleepers and the posts that are in all the corners it costs just shy of 240 pounds now show me out there might be thinking that's a little bit expensive but I didn't have any reclaimed Woods or any you know leftover wood knocking about if you are going to be building this exact planter then you are gonna have to invest in getting some good quality sleepers if you can get them cheaper elsewhere near you happy days but these ones from jewson around about 240 pounds now in terms of the compost we put in it was the roll-on beds and board as compost and we picked up from Wix for around about 120 pounds again it is quite expensive you'll see lots of videos on YouTube of people saying I'll get some logs in there and swigs and all different bits and Bobs but I mean as you can tell I'm not exactly got a garden with trees and loads of things knocking about that we could fill it with yep we got to use a little bit of the grass that was in the wheelie bin outside but the rest of it did need to be filled with compost we are going to be getting some bags of compost to actually go in and around the plants here just to make sure that they've got some good nutrients there in the soil to help them to establish and then the bitum and all the screws and fixings that we got to actually put this together came to around about 40 pounds all told you know like with any DIY project you can make it as cheap or as expensive as you want to there might be things that I've done to this raised bed that you think I wouldn't do it that way I'd use this and said though I'd do that instead then you know go for it this isn't the only way to build build a raised bed there's so many different ways but hopefully this is giving you some sort of idea as how I built mine and how you could possibly build yours if you're thinking of doing one yourself so thanks for watching today's video If you enjoyed it feel free to give it a like and if you'd like to check out any of my other videos such as my garden Innovation series or any of my lawn tip videos then head over to my channel and if that's what you see feel free to subscribe finally thanks for watching [Music] foreign

Channel: NoviceGardener

Views: 162,978

Keywords: build a raised garden bed, raised bed gardening for beginners, how to build a raised garden bed, raised garden bed, raised bed, raised bed gardening, how to make a raised garden bed, raised bed garden, raised flower bed, retaining wall raised garden bed, raised bed garden construction, raised bed planter, raised flower bed design ideas, how to fill a raised garden bed, making a raised garden bed, raised garden bed ideas, diy raised garden bed, easy raised garden bed, uk lawn

Id: MmRN9DjoSaI

Length: 19min 31sec (1171 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 23 2023