There’s nothing better than growing your own vegetables. It’s not always easy but you know where they come from and they seem to taste all the better for having come out of your back garden. Well done, you’ve cheated the supermarkets in the process.
This post shows pictures of some garden beds and provides plans if you want to have a go building them for yourself.
A few years ago I built six stand-alone garden beds using 2.4m long standard garden sleepers. These were a simple design but proved extremely effective. The beds were only 350mm off the ground but the thick walls prevented heat loss and gain from the outside and moisture loss. The 200mm tops to the outside of the beds made for the perfect place to site, work and potting bench and table top for lunch or coffee. Better still, by using a standard garden sleeper length we could bridge from one side of the bed to the other to subdivide the beds into two or three separate beds with internal access.
Each of these beds was fitted with its own irrigation tap with the aim that watering to individual beds could be controlled by computer (ahem, meaning the owners …yes, me…..,.could go on holiday and not have to worry about who watered their veges…why not!).
I’ve attached the plans for the beds here. They are not hard to build or even to adapt. Just use the measurements as proportions and it should all scale nicely. By my calculations each bed uses (almost exactly….ie with little wastage) 15 x 2.4m (200mm x 75mm) treated pine sleepers. This was a really enjoyable job. If you are located in Tasmania then feels free to give me a call or send me a message to ask for help or to give feedback.
One final word, I installed loam brought directly from a garden center. This proved way too heavy and ultimately difficult to dig. Add some sand or lots of organic material.
Happy building
Al