Thinking of making some raided beds in the garden and looked at the new railway sleepers. Seem to be pretty expensive for a big lump of wood. Any one got any alternative ideas ? Currently got some 80s crazy paving which could be dug up on laid on top of?

Old scaffold boards?

Old scaffold boards?

+1

I used decking boards, smooth side out. Quite pleased with the result.

Where do I get scaffold boards from? Fleabay?

Scaffolding company, they will have spent boards they sell

I used decking boards.

Cheap and lined on the back with a bit of tarp help keeps the rot at bay.

Sleepers? Bit overkill, did you landscape your garden with daisy cutters? I’d be looking at scaff boards of either normal or double thickness from a reclaimers if you want to keep costs down.

Or for probably less money than the sleepers you could get pressure treated wood that will last as long as you need it to (but may not be great for food crops).

9*3 boards from your timber merchant. Look like sleepers from the front, sort of.

Or a regular timber yard for new scaffold boards, or a good yard should be able to sell you treated timber in your chosen dimensions. I paid less than about a fiver each for 3m by 140x20mm boards to do some veg garden borders at covers in chichester. I would have thought most builders yards with a landscaping timber dept would be good. Note that most treated timbers are not rated for ground contact use, so don’t bother asking for it, just accept it will not last indefinitely, but should be good for ten years.

Oh, and I did notice homebase had the similar timber in a ‘raised bed pack’ but id expects it to be at least twice the price of a good yard.

Sleepers have nasty preservatives, allegedly.

Built some with scaffold boards and bits of old cupboards today:

We built ours with gravel boards

Ready to plant by ebygomm, on Flickr

+1 gravel boards.

What did you all treat them with? I’m thinking bitumen paint on the inside with some sort of plastic or tarp to stop them rotting inside out

ebygomm – looks great

What did you use as the corner joints? Is it 2×2″?
Did you have to do a lot of ground preparation?

Yes, 2×2 in the corners.

One raised bed from a pack of 5 gravel boards (4 full length, then final one chopped into 4 for the ends) and one 2m length of 2×2.

We didn’t treat ours at all. Everything I read said everything will rot eventually and better spending less and renewing.

Raised beds and path by ebygomm, on Flickr

Also drilled holes to hold cloche hoops, which works well.

Did you fill them with top soil or use a soil & compost mix?

I just used some old 4” fence panels – done two at single height, two at double. Filled with a mix of old planters, manure, bought compost and soon my own compost.

You can cut some DIY slot together jobs out of plywood with a bit of thought. Someone doing an inidiegogo thang about flat pack garden stuff, including raised beds, chicken hutches, bee hives.. they have the plans for the beds available but you can just look at it and figure it out for yourself.

I made a couple of herb gardens out old pallets from work. Recycled and free!

our garden looked like this after i had cut down the trees and bushes…

the plan was to lay turf down but there was so much excess clay/soil that i ended up making a raised bed to the side. i bought some cut jigsaw them from B&Q. i think they cost about £10 each. i topped them off with decking planks but i never got round to doing the same to the side…that’ll be this summers job.
had it like that for 2 years now and it seems to be doing well

Found the project

Raised beds with the intention of growing edibles? Do NOT use anything treated. You will end up consuming the preservatives that leach into the soil.
You can keep the wood dry if you separate the wood from soil using gravel and landscape cloth. Or plastic as mentioned above.

Going to go against convention here and say concrete blocks/or paving slabs (thinner) and then decorate with timber on the outside if you want it to last more than a couple of years.

We did have a raised bed area that was just treated timbers but it rotted in a few years. The replacement was a concrete block (7N) wall (with drain holes and gravel infill around drains) that was then battened and clad with cheaper timber. When the timber eventually rots away it can be simply unscrewed and replaced without everything falling apart.

You can always do a partial height block wall and then clad a bit higher up to hide the block edges.

dirksdiggler – Member 
Raised beds with the intention of growing edibles? Do NOT use anything treated. You will end up consuming the preservatives that leach into the soil.

Is pressure treated timber okay to use for edibles?

el shalimo – used it for years – pressure treated fence boards.

cant find anything online to say its bad, and never had any issues with any sign of anything leaching out of the boards.

edit: apparently, the EU banned most of the noxious wood preservatives a while ago so what is left is reasonably inert.

Pallet Collars

Ready made raised beds, variety of sizes and bargain prices from ebay.

Never seen or heard of these before the weekend but they are a simple and swift solution (thanks Tim)

We used tannelised ceiling joists. Just the right width and depth, two high.

Smudger666 – thanks

I used pressure treated gravel boards. Perfectly fictional but for aesthetics reasons I wished I would have chosen something thicker.