Become a Member
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Instagram
Pinterest
  • New Plants
    • New Plants Search
    • Green Thumb Award Winners
  • Year Of Plants
    • Year of the Amaryllis
      • Amaryllis Pictures
    • Year of the Broccoli
      • Broccoli Pictures
    • Year of the Celosia
      • Celosia Pictures
    • Year of the Orchid
      • Orchid Pictures
    • Year of the Rudbeckia
      • Rudbeckia Pictures
    • Year of the Spirea
      • Spirea Pictures
    • 2022 Year Of Plants
      • Year of the Gladiolus
        • Gladiolus Pictures
      • Year of the Lilac
        • Lilac Pictures
      • Year of the Peperomia
        • Peperomia Pictures
      • Year of the Phlox
        • Phlox Pictures
      • Year of the Salad Greens
        • Salad Greens Pictures
      • Year of the Verbena
        • Verbena Pictures
    • 2021 Year Of Plants
      • Year of the Hardy Hibiscus
        • Hardy Hibiscus Pictures
      • Year of the Garden Bean
        • Garden Bean Pictures
      • Year of the Hyacinth
        • Hyacinth Pictures
      • Year of the Monarda
        • Monarda Pictures
      • Year of the Sunflower
        • Sunflower Pictures
        • #YearoftheSunflower Video Contest Winners
    • 2020 Year Of Plants
      • Year of the Lavender
        • Lavender Pictures
      • Year of the Lantana
        • Lantana Pictures
      • Year of the Hydrangea
        • Hydrangea Pictures
      • Year of the Iris
        • Iris Pictures
      • Year of the Corn
        • Corn Pictures
    • 2019 Year Of Plants
      • Year of the Snapdragon
        • Snapdragon Pictures
      • Year of the Dahlia
        • Dahlia pictures
      • Year of the Pumpkin
        • Pumpkin Pictures
      • Year of the Salvia nemorosa
        • Salvia nemorosa pictures
    • 2018 Year Of Plants
      • Year of the Coreopsis
        • Coreopsis Pictures
      • Year of the Tulip
        • Tulip Pictures
      • Year of the Calibrachoa
        • Calibrachoa Pictures
      • Year of the Beet
        • Beet Pictures
    • 2017 Year Of Plants
      • Year of the Daffodil
        • Daffodil Pictures
      • Year of the Brassica
        • Brassica Pictures
      • Year of the Rose
        • Rose Pictures
      • Year of the Pansy
        • Pansy Pictures
  • Combo Ideas
  • Inspiration
    • NGB Blog
    • FAQs
    • Newsletter
    • Pinterest
    • Promote Gardening
    • #YearoftheSunflower Video Contest Winners
    • Snapdragon Video Winners
  • Education
    • Member Blogs
    • Books
    • Online Courses
    • Podcasts
    • Videos
    • Webinars
  • Products
    • Garden Books
    • Garden Décor
    • Garden Tools
    • Green Thumb Award Winners
  • Shop Members
    • United States
    • Canada
  • Garden Grant
    • Grant Application
    • Therapeutic Grant Program
  • Contact
7 Benefits for Raised Bed Gardening - National Garden Bureau

7 Benefits of Raised Bed Gardening

How-to, Planning and DesignMarch 1, 2023gail

Why Grow Your Own?

No matter how often we resolve to eat healthfully, it can be a challenge. From waking early to shop at the farmers’ market to managing the grocery budget as droughts and supply chain issues cause food prices to soar, finding fresh, affordable produce seems exhausting.

Don’t give up. Instead, enjoy the pleasure and convenience of growing your own food and flowers in a raised bed garden. With a sunny space, a bit of effort, and a little creativity, healthy eating can be cost-effective, convenient, and delicious. Plus, designing a garden-to-table space in your backyard sparks an incredible feeling of satisfaction, especially when you create seed-to-fork meals for family and friends.

Why Raised Bed Gardening?

Farmers grew crops in the ground for centuries, so why is gardening in a raised bed so appealing? Well, for many gardeners, growing space is limited, and it’s easy to pack lots of plants into a raised bed. Whether you’d like to grow on a sunny acre with multiple raised beds or plan to plant tomatoes in a small space on a patio, raised beds are easy to build, adaptable, and can meet any budget. Plus, an elevated raised bed makes gardening accessible for individuals with mobility issues.
Julie Thompson-Adolf Kitchen Garden with Raised Beds

Raised bed gardens provide many benefits:

1. Aesthetic Appeal

Many people want to grow veggies, fruit, or herbs, but pesky Homeowners’ Associations and landlords frown on untidy gardens. By creating artistically designed raised bed garden spaces, unruly vegetables are contained, edible flowers and pollinator plants add beauty, and the raised bed becomes an attractive focal point in the garden. Construct several beds, place them at equal intervals or in a potager-inspired design, add stone paths and an arbor, and suddenly you have a beautiful, raised bed garden worthy of a magazine photo shoot.

2. Superior Soil

Raised beds offer soil control. Whether you battle clay soil, or you’ve experienced a soil-born disease in your garden, these beds allow you to control the content and structure of the soil, ensuring a nutrient-rich environment for your plants. When filling your raised bed for the first time, you’ll begin with a pre-made soil mix or a combination of several ingredients to give your plants a healthy start. After harvest, simply refresh the soil with additional compost to keep the garden flourishing the following season.

3. Healthier Harvests

With several raised beds in a kitchen garden, it’s easy to practice crop rotation. Rotating crops helps maintain soil health and thwarts pests that overwinter in the soil.

Additionally, as nutrients in the soil become depleted each season, replenishing soil in a raised bed is simple. Adding compost, like Black Gold® Garden Compost Blend, provides micronutrients to existing soil to refresh beds and ensure healthy, productive plants.

4. Prolific Produce

You don’t need acres of land to grow lots of nutritious food. By adding vertical supports for vining crops, a raised bed maximizes growing space. Peas growing on a trellis can be under-planted with lettuce. Add a border of radishes along the bed’s edge. With multiple raised beds, it’s simple to install a trellis that joins two beds, creating an arching tunnel for beans or cucumbers to grow over the walkway. You’ll increase your food production—and the ease of harvesting. Plus, adding vertical elements in raised beds is not only practical, but it also adds visual interest to your garden.

5. Water Control

Raised beds allow the soil to drain well, avoiding the waterlogged challenges of many in-ground gardens. Irrigation is also less wasteful in the confined space of a raised bed. Properly installed drip irrigation systems, like the Raised Bed Drip Kit from Johnny’s Selected Seeds, target the plants’ roots, ensuring healthy plants, as well as saving money on water bills. Raised bed irrigation kits help maintain soil moisture, reducing watering chores.

6. Pest Protection

While backyard wildlife habitats make a terrific garden addition, no one appreciates furry and feathered friends eating carefully tended veggies intended for dinner. Raised beds protect crops from becoming snacks for wildlife. By reinforcing the bottom of the bed with a wire barrier, voles and gophers can’t access your tasty root crops, while a row cover over the bed helps keep cabbage worms at bay. Easy-to-install mini-hoops protect your crops.

7. Season Extension

After cold, gray winter days, gardeners can’t wait to get outside and start planting. In the spring, these beds’ soil tends to warm more quickly than the ground, allowing earlier planting of spring crops. Plus, with the addition of simple low tunnels, harvests can continue well into late fall. Additionally, reclaimed windows work well to create a cold frame for winter growing, using a raised bed as a base.

From saving a bit of backache to controlling the composition of your soil, raised beds provide many benefits in the garden.

Elevated Cedar Planter - Johnny's Selected Seeds
Cedar Raised Garden Bed - 4'x4' Photo Credit Johnny's Selected Seeds

Types of Raised Beds

Take a look at Pinterest, and you’ll find all kinds of raised beds. While there is a wide variety of styles and materials used to create these beds—bricks, fallen logs, straw bales, and even concrete blocks—the most common style of a raised bed is easily built from lumber. If you’re eager to start growing right away, you’ll find dozens of ready-to-install raised beds available, from metal, raised Birdie Beds to long-lasting cedar or composite raised beds. Elevated raised beds provide easy, comfortable access to grow your favorite veggies, herbs, or flowers.

Before You Begin with Your Raised Beds

Proper planning will save you time and money when creating your new garden. First, consider what types of plants you want to grow. Are you looking to grow a few tomato plants each summer, or do you intend to feed a family of five with fresh produce from the garden? Or maybe you prefer to grow gorgeous flowers for garden-to-vase bouquets. Based on your goals, you can determine how many beds you’ll need.
Beginner Tip for the New Gardener

If you’re a new gardener, start small so that you enjoy the process without becoming overwhelmed. You can always add more raised beds next season.

3 Tips for Raised Bed Site Selection

1. Sun

Most vegetables, fruits, and flowers prefer full sun, at least 6-8 hours. Some crops, like lettuce and Swiss chard, tolerate less sun, but for good production of fruiting crops, the sun is important.

2. Water

A nearby water source is critical. Choose a level site near the garden hose or rain barrel for ease of watering.

3. Proximity

Consider the proximity of your new garden to the kitchen. A garden closer to the home adds convenience when cooking meals. It’s easier to harvest beans, snip fresh herbs, or pull an errant weed when the garden is nearby. You’ll also spot any potential problems, like pests or droopy plants, before they become big issues in your garden.

Raised Bed Site Preparation

Once you’ve selected your site, remove the sod and any weeds. Lay a thick blanket of cardboard on the grass, which will kill it and serve as a weed barrier.

Filling Your Raised Bed 

Remember math class? To find the volume of your new raised bed, multiply length x width x height. If you’ve created a 4-foot wide, 8-foot long, 8-inch high bed, you’ll need 21.44 cubic feet of soil. 4’ (width) x 8’ (length) x .67’ (height).
Once you determine the volume, pre-packaged soil, like Black Gold® Natural and Organic Raised Bed and Potting Mix, provides the perfect start for your plants. Just open the bags, fill the bed, and you’re ready to plant!
Or perhaps you want to create your own soil mix. The classic raised bed mix contains one-third blended compost, one-third peat moss (although coconut coir can be used as a more sustainable alternative), and one-third vermiculite, which provides excellent drainage and aeration.
After you’ve filled the bed, water the soil well to allow it to settle.
National Garden Bureau Expert Tips

For the best ingredients to create rich, productive soil for your garden, turn to National Garden Bureau members. They carry expertly researched and professionally developed soil amendments to make your garden flourish.

Lasagna Gardening 

If you begin your raised bed journey well before the spring gardening season, lasagna gardening makes a low-cost option for filling your beds. Also known as sheet composting, lasagna gardening uses natural ingredients found in your garden and kitchen to create nutrient-rich soil, ideal for heavy feeders like tomatoes and pepper.
In the fall, begin by placing layers of cardboard in the bottom of the raised bed, which helps smother weeds. Next, place a four-inch layer of cut-up branches and twigs, broken into one-inch pieces, onto the cardboard. These will provide good drainage. Add an eight-inch layer of fallen leaves or straw on top of the branches, then water well to help the layers settle.
Next, add a two-inch layer of compost or well-rotted manure, followed by four inches of grass clippings or green yard waste, mixed with kitchen compost—such as vegetable scraps and coffee grounds. Continue alternating brown and green layers until the bed is nearly full, then water well. The layers will begin decomposing throughout winter, providing rich, organic material for your veggies, herbs, and flowers.
In spring, you’ll notice the layers have settled as they decompose. Add soil on top of the lasagna garden to fill the bed, and you’re ready to start planting.

Planting Your Garden in the Raised Bed 

Decide what you or your family likes to eat and create your garden plan. Many garden centers sell vegetable plant starts, but some plants—like beans, peas, and radishes—grow easily (and inexpensively) from seed. Plus, it’s incredibly satisfying to harvest food that you’ve grown and nurtured from seed. If you want to grow unique veggies or All-America Selection varieties, like Purple Zebra Tomato, Wildcat Cayenne Pepper, or Sweet Jade Squash kabocha, starting plants from seeds is both a cost-saving and fun alternative to purchasing transplants. There’s nothing nicer than nurturing seedlings indoors during chilly winter days!
To increase the beauty and productivity of your garden, add flowers. A border of nasturtium or marigolds attracts beneficial insects, increasing pollination and eliminating many pests in the garden. Plus, many flowers are edible, making a beautiful addition to salads and other dishes. Flowers can be a pretty and practical addition in your vegetable garden. Or maybe you want to dedicate your raised beds to growing a productive cut-flower garden so that you can fill your vases with homegrown bouquets all season long.

Whatever your preference, raised beds make growing your favorite food, herbs, and flowers a great experience.

About National Garden Bureau

Founded more than 100 years ago, the National Garden Bureau educates, inspires, and motivates people to grow home gardens. National Garden Bureau members are horticultural experts, and the information shared with you comes directly from these experts to ensure your gardening success.

Pin It For Later
7 Benefits for Raised Bed Gardening - National Garden Bureau
Previous post Is Your Garden Thriving? Thank a Plant Breeder! Next post 5 Essential Spring Gardening Tips

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating




Follow Blog via Email

Sign-Up to receive notifications of our new posts.

Search

Topics

  • DIY Crafts & Gifts
  • Flower Shows and Festivals
  • Garden Grant Recipients
  • Gardening as Therapy
  • Gardening Books
  • How-to
  • Indoor Gardening
  • Kid's Gardening
  • Planning and Design
    • Backyard Habitat
    • Container Gardening
    • Garden Planning & Design
    • Perennials
    • Plants for Shade
  • Plant Care
    • Pests and Diseases
    • Plant Care & Maintenance
    • Soil, Compost and Mulch
    • Winter Gardening
  • Planting
    • Flower Gardening
    • Foodscaping
    • Herbs
    • Planting Tips
    • Seeds and Seed Starting
    • Vegetables
  • Pollinator Gardening
  • Recipes

Archives

  • March 2023
  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • February 2017

Contact

National Garden Bureau
5201 Walnut Ave., Suite 3
Downers Grove, IL 60515
Phone: 630-963-0770
Email

Quick Links

New Plants
2022 Year Of Plants
Inspiration
Shop Our Members
National Promotions
Garden Grant
AAS Winners
Video Contest Winners

About NGB

Who We Are
Become a Member
Member Directory
Member Photo Libraries
NGB in the News

Newsletter Sign-Up

Sign-Up for our Newsletter Here

Copyright © 2023 National Garden Bureau. All rights reserved.