Making raised veg beds advice

Used scaffolding planks might be a cheaper option. Cedar is going to be seriously expensive as most comes from Canada. Have you got a local forestry sawmills? We’ve got three raised beds constructed from 12”x2” softwood that just happened to be left lying around on the building site. I’ll get some locally sawn larch when these are gone.

Looked at the wood options - all were prohibitively expensive and rot prone.  The ultra crustys say dont use Treated wood due to the tanalising process they read about pre 2004 ) when/where arsenic compounds were used (CCA)

going to go with Galvanised tin for ours. 

My advice would be just get rid of the raised beds. Unless you have back issues (or some such disabling condition) then they are pointless. They are expensive to build, they all rot and collapse at slightly different rates, they harbour pests, and they require more watering.

Home grown cedar is not particularly good. I keep bees in cedar hives and the british stuff is nowhere near as good as the imported stuff. Larch is naturally less durable than cedar, and the same applies with regard to imports. Both will rot when exposed to constant moisture and soil. Probably better off with treated for the price, but like I said, the most sustainable option is to grow directly in the ground.

Cuplock scaff boards are thicker than quick stage and are good for veg beds. 

Expect to get 7 years out of timber before they rot 

As ratty says,the galvanised ones are good. Friends have the oval shaped ones and they look OK. Think they cost around £50 each.

It was a while ago but we bought the wood for ours from a local sawmill at a good price.

I used sleepers and lined it with roofing felt

I have made them before out of treated softwood, but lined with polythene DPM so there is no contact between soil and the treated timber. I also add in central drainage holes at a 1/3rd height via another timber spanning lengthways and fill the bottom 1/3 with stone. Add a geotextile over the stone to stop it filling with soil, then soil above. So then you get a bed that avoids getting the soil (upper 2/3rds) saturated, and also avoids drying out as it has a water reservoir at the bottom. Also no wood to soil contact.

Mrs BigJohn has an allottment which has a lot of raised beds which were installed by the previous occupant.  They're made from a variety of types of wood (and metal and plastic) and when any need replacing she tends to borrow my impact driver and patch them up with any old bits of timber she can get her hands on.  So whenever she sees any old decking, cladding, planks lying about they tend to get picked up and put in the "this'll come in handy" pile.

We inherited an ugly raised bed when we moved into our current house and that's been re-modelled with sleepers from Wickes.  It now looks quite attractive and didn't seem to harm the dahlias last year.

I used Scaff boards, which when jet washed and sanded down, look pretty good. Stay away from used sleepers, if it hasn't already been said.

Thank you everyone.  The beds here at the moment are wooden and have lasted about 15 - 16 years.

The galvanised type is so much cheaper. I may go for those. We live in a wet part of the country, so keeping these beds moist shouldn't be a problem.

An idea that may/may not work for you geographically: in our last place we got a couple of 1 ton spud boxes from the local farmer and cut them in half to make 4 beds. They were still in good nick when we moved after 7 years and cost very little. Without doing any hard maths, re-using something that had already had a few years use felt like a sustainable option.

Just testing - says 12 posts on here but I can only see 10, (or 13 and 11 with this one).

In addition to scaffold boards, have a look out for some pallet collars, they make for great raised beds.

Wood recycling places are great places to source these from:-

Wood stores – Community Wood Recycling

I've just made 3 from pallet collars. They were second hand but you can get them from BigDUG new for cheap. They're lined with black DPC and against my advice weed control fabric in the bottom (the depth of soil is too much for weeds to come up and I'd have preferred a way for worms to get in). 6 pallet collars were a lot cheaper than the 2 bulk bags of top soil needed to fill them!

Just checking

Hmm, nothing loading or showing here on the veg bed thread, but pick-ups, trucks, fast skodas....well they show immediately. Hmmm.

I have two corrugted jobs.

I have also ised a tonne bag with the top folded in on itself. That waspretty effective and i stabbed some gashes in the side for strawbs and nasturtiums etc. depends how prettyit has to look but herbs and stuff dangling over the side or growing at the base hide quite alot..

Aa for usefulness. We have quite a high clay content drying out isn't a problem its not drowning everything's 

I just went to the local builders merchant and bought the thickest/longest decking boards they had. No idea what the wood is but I gave it a coat of garden paint to a) make it look nicer and b) try and make it last a bit longer. The last lot lasted 10+ years before needing replaced.

i did have a swing seat made of Canadian Ceder that lasted about 10-15 years untreated before it started to rot away.

I used 150 x 38mm pressure treated sawn boards from a local forestry place. I drove in 38mm site pegs in each corner and screwed the boards to them. 

I've used spare corrugated iron sheeting. Super easy, will last for ages.  

I used old decking boards. Get many years out of them and have spares for when needing a patch up.

Think ours is 300x75 Douglas Fir, also durable like Larch and Cedars. Try a sawmill to order.

In a different part of the garden we are using plasterers troughs so we can rearrange and segregate.

Will be getting some old galv. water troughs to incorporate into the front garden wall for planting.

I’ve just replaced ours. I used 1.5” oak boards about 20 ago and they lasted well but are now rotten enough that they were worth ripping out. I’ve managed to snag a load of old used oak bridge beams from work which are basically untreated oak sleepers. Getting them in palace has been a mission and cutting them to size has resulted in using up some old gash chainsaw chains and a lot of resharpening but they ought to do for a looong time. I’ve also made some others with the old 3” bridge deck boards but I don’t think these would last anything like as long. Might line the softwood (treated Douglas fir)  with felt roofing as someone on here said. Funnily enough any pre. 2004 treated timber I’ve repurposed is still rock solid whereas post 2004 stuff just doesn’t last in contact with the ground! If I was starting from scratch and was looking to stay in a place long term I’d use reclaimed oak/ untreated hardwood sleepers from a reclamation yard. Find somewhere you can do a bulk deal and pay up and they will outlast anything else. Don’t buy treated softwood sleepers now as like I mentioned above the treatment doesn’t work.  

Timber - unless you’re in the right place at the right time new galv water troughs are prob better value that “vintage” ones these days! I’m also after a couple but gone are the days that farmers are getting rid of them cheaply! 

 Funnily enough any pre. 2004 treated timber I’ve repurposed is still rock solid whereas post 2004 stuff just doesn’t last in contact with the ground! If I was starting from scratch and was looking to stay in a place long term I’d use reclaimed oak/ untreated hardwood sleepers from a reclamation yard. Find somewhere you can do a bulk deal and pay up and they will outlast anything else. Don’t buy treated softwood sleepers now as like I mentioned above the treatment doesn’t work.  

you shouldnt be growing in pre 2004 timber .... 

"you shouldnt be growing in pre 2004 timber ...."

I didn't say I was. My previous veg beds were untreated oak, says so I'm my post.

I've repurposed old fenceposts/ stakes that have had a previous life, my washing line is hanging off 2x 1999 strainer posts that are dug in the ground, I've used some old bridge deckboards for revetment boards for odd parts of the garden or to hold some soil back. To be honest if a bridge deck board has been down doing it's job on a bridge in the countryside for 20 years and is re-used as the edge of a veg bed after that time I'm reasonably sure it won't be contributing much arsenic into a veg bed at that stage. there's probably worse in the rain or fall out off the main road that passes by my house! 

I never said you were but you did say if you were starting from scratch you would. It says so in your post. 

There is one good reason that counts against using timber that I don't think anyone has mentioned so far, and that's the problem that the rotting process of fungi consuming the wood promotes the depletion of nitrogen and mineral content from your soil in the bed.  I'd avoid timber completely for this reason, better to try to find something inert like old windowsills, concrete beams/lintels from demolition, second hand breeze blocks... 

Also, placing any form of moisture barrier at the bottom of the bed interior is also going to be counter productive, you always want a continuous connection between your plants' roots and the groundwater to help prevent drying out in extreme weather.  Doesn't matter if it's rock based or plastic membrane, it breaks the connection and the plants cannot draw from deeper; think capillary attraction.

At the specialist nursery I used to work at in a very high rainfall area, we used mostly pot based growing on a porous sand mix, with the pots sunk well in to ensure connection with the groundwater but preventing waterlogging for this reason.  Your veg or fruit needs access to water but not to be sitting in a puddle.

I made mine out of old pallets - tbh I spent a lot on screws and brackets, so not sure whether the best saving. Also, not in the best state now after a few years. 

My two cents:

1. Raise wood off the ground - through paving slaps, or gravel.

2. Line it with something impermeable - I found this corrugated plastic stuff - which means you can treat the wood with whatever effective wood preserver you can and don't have to go down the rabbit hole of tung oil. 

3. Avoid making overly deep - or it takes an age to fill - yes you can put logs and leaves at the bottom, but these will compact over time and you'll need to top up in a way you don't with top soil. 

trail rat - no worries. If you read my post it says if starting from scratch I'd use reclaimed oak/ untreated hardwood sleepers.... 😀 

"If I was starting from scratch and was looking to stay in a place long term I’d use reclaimed oak/ untreated hardwood sleepers from a reclamation yard. Find somewhere you can do a bulk deal and pay up and they will outlast anything else. Don’t buy treated softwood sleepers now as like I mentioned above the treatment doesn’t work."

Having had a sleeper wall fail bang on the 7 year expected life expectancy, I'd be tempted to go with something more resistant. 

Are the recycled plastic decking and fencepost products ok alongside veg? If so that would sound like an ideal product.

Have you got a local forestry sawmills

This isn't a bad call at the moment - recent storms will have brought down a lot of tress that aren't the fast growing commercially planted species that are usually on the market. I replaced the floorboards in my house with sycamore because in the aftermath of storm Arwyn I could get hardwood for the same price as pine. 

There can be some hardwood bargains as non-commercially grown hardwoods tend not be very straight so although the wood is good quality it only yields quite short planks.

Also, perhaps local to Bunnyhop (north west IIRC) 'Rustic Touch' near Chorley has various new and reclaimed oak sleepers. Reclaimed could have any old crap in them but the 'new' one are untreated and the do a sort of half thickness sleeper - basically scaffold plank dimensions - that would be more manageable for raised beds

Having had a sleeper wall fail bang on the 7 year expected life expectancy, I'd be tempted to go with something more resistant. 

The stuff sold in garden centres/timber merchants as 'sleepers' would never see life under some railway tracks, its just some cheap softwood on an equivalent dimension.

The holy grail of sleepers are the ones used on the London Underground- untreated Jarrah

Get some IBC and make wicking beds? Dead easy. Got three in the front garden.

How to make an IBC Wicking Bed - Simple Savings