Raised vegetable planter

[Trisha]

Hi I'm just new to this forum and newish to gardening. I'm wanting advice on building a couple of raised vegetable planters.
I want to put them on heavy duty castors as they will be close to a large hedge that will be needing cut three or four times a year and will need to be moved.
My dilemma is what type of timber should I use? I need to keep the cost down.
I have read that Tanalised timber leeches out chemicals which are harmful if ingested and I'm not happy about eating anything that might have been tainted with these chemicals.
Some of the YouTube videos mention using Cedar for raised beds, as this timber doesn't contain harmful chemicals. Though this is very expensive and hard to get. I would appreciate any advice from other gardeners. Many thanks Trisha

 

[Tetters]

Welcome to the forum Trisha May I ask you why you want to plant in raised beds? I know they are very much the 'fashion' these days, but they can also - in my opinion - be quite problematical as well as expensive.
Another thought I have is about the position. Would a hedge not shade your beds too much? You might want to consider which way faces South for maximum sunshine (hopefully it will come out again)

 

[Trisha]

Hi Tetters thank you for your reply My reason for wanting raised planters is I have arthritis and it would make gardening easier for me. I have been growing tomatoes plants in containers in my conservatory for a couple of years. Last year I got more adventurous and grew lettuces, mixed salad leaves, and tumbling toms outside, again all in containers dotted around the garden and everything worked out well However this year I would like to try growing more vegetables in the one place. I have a south /south-easterly facing garden and positioning the planter in front of the hedge is the best option I have as it gets the sun from around 10am through to 8pm . Let's hope we get a good summer this year

 

[Tetters]

Righto ! My first thought is that even if you do pay out loads of money for timber, a sizeable raised bed with wet compost in it and a load of plants will be far too heavy to move, and my suggestion would be to maybe get a succession of beds whatever dimensions fit best at right angles away from the hedge so you can get around the back of them for cutting the hedge.
Some photos of your garden would be really helpful if you could upload some please.

Have you considered using blocks to build the beds? You could simply leave the soil in the base, and top up - making the drainage easy.
Stick with the planning at the moment it can be an enjoyable pastime while the situation is as it is covid/weather wise !
Here`s a picture to be getting on with..............

Those beds could be as high as you want them .

 

[Don Perry]

Soil tends to weigh around 40 pounds per cubic foot.( I dont know how many kilos that would be), Even a raised bed of 3 foot by 7 foot by 1 1/2 foot would weight around 1260 pounds. And that would be just the weight of the dirt. I built my raised beds inside a greenhouse to those dimensions and they weighed around 500 pounds. They are stationary and I never move them for obvious reasons.

 

[Chillie6]

I’ve built several planters and raised beds from decking boards. Using heavy duty rubble sacks as liners. @Trisha some idea of what size containers you are thinking of would help. Some that I have made:

 

[Tetters]

SO impressive ! Welcome to the forum @Chillie6 - it is good to have you on board. I especially love the headboard for a flower bed, that made me smile !

 

[Chillie6]

SO impressive ! Welcome to the forum @Chillie6 - it is good to have you on board. I especially love the headboard for a flower bed, that made me smile !

Thank you @Tetters very welcoming. That piece of the garden is supposed to be my daughters, but guess who looks after it
The idea of a flower ‘bed’ worked out better than I thought. Must make a posting in the newbie thread

 

[Woollie]

I find raised beds work well for our garden as it is basically old farm land, having changed a lot of the grass to newly seeded in the last few years it's almost back to farmy grass again..winners and losers with our land..raised beds for veggies and plants.
.even this fish pond is raised...

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