Herbs
Vegetables
Fruit
Flowers
Succulents
Make this easy 4 by 8-foot raised bed from 3 8-foot boards that you can have cut to size at the store. One 8-foot board needs to be cut into 2 4-foot sections. To build it, all you do is screw the boards together at the corners. We used 2x12 boards for beds 12 inches deep, but 2x10 or 2x8 boards will also create beds deep enough for planting.
To build our easy Raised Bed, download our printable PDF guide.
List of Materials
- 2 - 8-foot 2x12 boards
- 2 - 4-foot 2x12 boards
- 3½-inch deck screws
- 13 1-cubic foot bags of Miracle-Gro® Organic Raised Bed & Garden Soil
- 25-foot soaker hose
- cordless drill
Step 1 First, mark off a 4- by 8-foot rectangle where you want your bed. Take up the grass and make sure that the ground is level.
Step 2 To build the bed, fasten the boards at the corners by screwing together in 3 or 4 places with 3-inch deck screws. Predrill the holes to prevent splitting.
Step 3 When the frame is complete, check to see that it fits level on the ground. If it rocks, move it aside to shave off any high points in the soil with your shovel.
Step 4 Put the frame back in place and fill it with your Miracle-Gro® Organic Raised Bed & Garden Soil.
Step 5 Wind a 25-foot soaker hose up and down the bed for easy watering. Hold the soaker in place with pins used for landscape fabric or make your own pins from 1-foot lengths of bailing wire folded in half.
Step 6 Plant your Bonnie Plants® alongside the soaker hose. You may also want to mulch the bed with Miracle-Gro Organic™ All Natural Mulch to keep the soil moist and prevent weeds; avoid a fine mulch such as compost, because it can clog soaker hoses. Turn on the soaker to water deeply. You may need to use a sprinkler the first time to make sure that all the soil is evenly moist.
Tips
- It is very important to buy boards that are straight. Reject any that are bent or warped.
- Because boards are not always exact measurements, it is a good idea to measure them all first and trim them, if needed.
- If your ground is a bit uneven because of grass or because you've dug up the turf, you can level it with some builders' sand.
- If you want the raised bed to be parallel to an existing structure, measure equal distances from the existing structure.
- You may line the box with heavy-duty plastic sheeting to put a barrier between the soil and the boards.
- Take the time to moisten the soil thoroughly before planting. Turn a sprinkler on the bed for a couple of hours. As the soil settles, you may find that you need to add a little more.
- Instead of using wire pins to tack down the soaker hose, you can weigh
it down with stone or bricks; after a while it will stay in place after you
remove the weights because it takes up the shape that you lay it out
in. - Keep plants well fed throughout the growing season by fertilizing them
with a continuous-release plant food such as Miracle-Gro® Shake ‘n
Feed® Tomato, Fruit & Vegetable Plant Food.
