Went through one full growing season with our new raised beds. They are 4'x8'. 36" tall. No bending for anything anymore. More work to put them together and fill them...but just topping them off when they settle is all I have to do just now. Learned some things to not do next time when I'm filling them up from scratch . They settle pretty good ..so I filled them up with the chips and dirt from stump grinding I had done this year. Beautiful stuff ! Topped off with rabbit bedding/manure. They will settle over winter..so I'll top them with compost before planting next year. Nice to be done before winter !
Thank you ! Bought from a company called Land Guard. They came in flat boxes .then we put them together. Lots of bolts and nuts. Had about an hour into each one. 45 minutes to put together ..15 minutes to stand up straight again lol.
Beautiful! I went a different route for raised beds, and have been using the stock tanks for several years. Started with three and have ten now. You're definitely going to enjoy not bending over when gardening or weeding!
HoneyFuzz Those look great. I have very tempting ads show up on my phone for Sproutboxes made in Alberta. We need to get some house repairs done first before I get involved in gardening again.
Got in on the holiday sales going on. Ordered the two boxes that will complete our idea for next year. Feels nice having them stashed away and ready !
Thank you ! I understand about the house repairs. We had to put off a couple of non essential repairs to make these happen. They are not cheap ! I hope you can get into gardening again. So rewarding and peaceful.
Those look great! Are they filled top to bottom with soil or did you put a filler to take up volume in the lower part?
Thank you ! Great question. I put one loader full f dirt in...then a good layer of cut branches and sticks...then a healthy top layer of compost and topsoil. Probably a good 16" of sticks. It helped as I didn't have a ton of dirt on hand. The decomposition is healthy ..and it'll allow me to slowly add material to the top...as the lower part breaks down. Just had to use what I had on hand ..and the money left in my pocket after buying the beds lol. So far so good !
Did you end up drilling small drainage holes in the bottom of those? I've been considering switching from my wooden sided beds (which are on their 7th year now) to something more permanent and ergonomic.
No. I've heard of people drilling extra holes however all I've ever needed is the single factory drain hole. I put about six inches of 3/4 stone in the bottom before adding any soil to aid in draining and tried to angle them just a hair to the drain side. I really like these stock tanks for gardening (especially not having to bend over). Even with the drought last year I still had a respectable garden.
That drought is still a concern. So far in '26, we're 4+ inches below average for rain. The snow we had was fluffy. So minimal liquid when melted.
Yeah, it's not looking good for NE considering the drought map for April (at least for NH) is already worse than what we would possibly see in August during a bad year. I hate during winter when people say they're tired of the snow or they can't wait for winter to be over. If we don't have a decent snow pack (which we did not have this past winter), we suffer with a drought, which is a lot worse than being inconvenienced by snow.
This will be my first year trying raised beds. Got a knee replacement coming in June so I didn’t think I’d be doing much on my knees this summer but still wanted to garden.
