In which case what did you use, new wood, scrap wood pallets etc. Any pointers appreciated. They’ll be for veg gardening and don’t have to look that nice

I used new sleepers – werent that expensive – and we did it as part of rebuild of the garden anyway.

see them here
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/northmalvern/GardenProject

I used old scaffold boards, from a wood recycling centre, and used 3″ fence posts cut down to strengthen the corners. Ours are 1200mm wide with a 600mm path in between. 1200mm means you can easily reach to the middle without having to walk on the beds and a 600mm gap gives you enough room to kneel down to work.

If you want them to last its best to use tanalised wood or else the damp in the soil will soon rot the timber and youll end up with the raised border on the floor!

i was told you should not use tanalised wood as chemicals leach into the soil…

all from a skip on street due to loft conversion. But as hector says it is untreated and will only last about 6 years or so.

My mates dad built his from breeze blocks/bricks hes had them for 25 years uses them to grow his leeks/onions etc. to show. Maybe not the prettiest but long lasting and harmless

We’re turning an old flagged patio area into a veg plot, plan is to put the flags vertical to create the beds, saves skipping them and paying for something else, granted the beds won’t be raised that much but it better than nowt….

Yeah avoid tanalised or treated sleepers. Last lot I made, I planked up an oak tree that had blown down – any green wood would work in that way if you had the equipment or the wood and a local mill.

Scaffold boards here too.

Used that not-actually-creosote stuff to treat, presume safer and doesn’t seem to have affected the flavour or size of my onions and garlic last year.

I used mini dry stone wall, dug all the stone out of garden to make the beds in first place, but only raised about 10 inches, should last many many years hopefully.

Nothing wrong with pressure-treated timber for raised beds. The days of arsenic and other nasties in pressure treatment have passed (now being illegal) and modern treatments are more friendly. Treatment isn’t as effective though!

Having said that, best avoid ‘reclaimed’ sleepers (mostly imported these days) or any salvaged wood that may have been treated in the bad old days if you want to grow good organic produce.

As a couple of other comments – do not use old sleepers as they contain all sorts of nasty stuff

And as pointed out on wild about gardening, don’t use any logs that have a black web like fungus on them, it’ll spread and kill everything, esp trees, in the neighbourhood.

We just used old chipboard, but it is only temporary as we rent.

Thanks all. I was thinking s/h scaffolding boards would be the way to go but I guess they were treated bitd. Might go plan B and just buy all the wood.

Would love to see pics of other peoples beds. I’ve collected some wood to make borders around what was a useless patio area to the side of the house. How deep do people reccomend? Type of earth? Much compost?. Weed suppressant lining?

Well these are my two – just remember they’re only temporary

Upper Bed

Lower Bed

I dug my beds probably a foot and a half deep (felt like they were metres deep though). I lined one with a lining that you use for hanging baskets – it was old and rotting in the roof of the shed and free, and the other with a couple of layers of cardboard, I’ve had no weeds growing through.

For the top bed I used a mix of compost, peat and fertilizer, the lower bed was just compost and soil, but both produced really good crops