The Best Raised Garden Bed Option for you!

one of those popular methods for small-scale gardening is using raised beds and for good reason raised beds provide for good drainage they allow you to better control the quality of your soil they heat up more quickly in the spring and allow for a longer growing season into the fall and winter a question that a lot of gardeners have is what material is best to use for a raised bed there's wood metal stone plastic it can all be confusing in this video i'm going to talk about each of these options and explain which material may be best for you and your situation so stick around [Music] now before we get into all the different materials that can be used for raised beds let's first talk about some general rules now first is how big they should be generally you want your raised beds to be at least 12 inches high now this provides some space for drainage and allows for the proper amount of soil for most plants they can be higher which may be more comfortable for some people but will also require more building materials and soil to fill it which equals more cost when building your raised beds make sure that they're not so deep that you can't reach in them generally two feet is good but they can be wider if you have full access to all sides if you are building more than one planter make sure that you have enough room between planters to work again a few feet is usually enough and lastly make sure that you use good soil the exact composition will vary depending upon where you live and what you want to plant but if your soil is bad it defeats the whole purpose of a raised bed so what material should you use to build your raised planter well there are a ton of different options but i'm going to put them into four different categories the first is metal second is stone then there's plastic or composite materials and wood now a lot of people opt to go with metal planters and that can be a good choice metal planters will last a really long time depending upon what you get they can also be economical and really easy to install there are some downsides however metal planters can attract heat and that can be bad for your plant's roots and can also cause the soil to dry out more quickly some metal planters can also be damaged by fertilizers which can lead to certain materials like zinc being leached into your soil at higher concentrations than you may want in very wet climates metal planters are also more likely to rust and corrode if you do use a metal planter be sure to use one without a bottom so that water can drain through the soil and not pool which can rot your plants out by the roots [Music] brick or stone are excellent options for raised beds that will last a long time the downside and the reason that you don't see many of them very often is that they're expensive both for the stone to use but also for the labor to put it in if you do it yourself it will take some time and you know some expertise now natural stone is generally best but there are a lot of concrete blocks out there that you can use most of them are made from portland cement they're perfectly safe one thing that should be avoided are cinder blocks and that's because in the past cinder blocks were made using something called fly ash or flu ash fly ash is a toxic byproduct of burning coal and can contain harmful chemicals like calcium oxide aluminum oxide or magnesium oxide which could leach into the soil that's definitely not something that you want [Music] plastic or composite materials can be a very good option in fact i've even seen pvc planners like these for sale at costco composite decking is also a good choice and will last a really long time you should definitely avoid plastics that are not purpose built for the outdoors or for decking or garden boxes or things like that as some plastics can leach toxic or harmful substances into the soil that's definitely not something that you want [Music] now wood has been one of the most popular choices for garden beds for ages and it can be a good choice for a lot of reasons just be sure that you use the right kind of wood never use railroad ties as they're treated with a toxic substance called creosote also avoid pallet wood that's been treated with methyl bromide while some pallet wood may be fine to build with i tend to avoid using pallet wood and even made a video explaining why if you want to check that out now here's a list of some of the woods that i think are best to use redwood can be fantastic eastern red cedar or western red cedar in fact i recently made a video about cedar if you want to check that one out cypress is an option douglas fir can be good there are other woods that can work too but may be harder to come by depending upon where you live and some of those are black locust larch eastern hemlock in fact eastern hemlock was the wood that i used to build my plantar boxes in pennsylvania i bought it from the amish it's kind of a cool sawmill that i went to you can check out that video here really you could build a wooden planter out of almost any kind of wood the question really becomes how long do you want it to last a planter built out of untreated pine lumber that you know the type that you find at lows or home depot will last maybe three to five years in the ground but what redwood could last over 30 that said over time water fungus and insects will eat away at any kind of wood you choose [Music] in the end your choice of what kind of raised bed you use will depend upon your climate your needs and probably most importantly your budget just be sure to follow the advice that i've given in this video about the types of materials you want to avoid so you're not using something that can be harmful if you enjoyed this video please show me some love by hitting that like button subscribe to my channel if you want to see more and leave a comment to tell me what kind of planters you've used in the past and why thanks again for watching we'll see the next one [Music]

Channel: DIY with Dave

Views: 145,911

Keywords: raised bed, raised bed kits, raised garden beds, raised garden, raised garden bed, metal garden bed, vego garden bed, are metal raised garden beds good, is galvonized metal safe for garden beds, do metal garden beds get too hot, plastic garden beds, pvc garden beds, plastic garden bed, how long do plastic garden beds last, wooden garden bed, wooden raised garden beds, wooden garden box, wooden planters, planter, wooden garden planter, raised garden planter, gardening, garden

Id: l_5Y7FdTzYg

Length: 6min 36sec (396 seconds)

Published: Thu May 19 2022