Are raised vegetable garden beds right for your garden? If building garden beds is in your future, here are 11 benefits and 4 drawbacks for growing in raised beds.
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Garden Bed Considerations
When you’re ready to start a garden and build garden beds, you’ll want to take stock of the following:
- How much rainfall you get (Annual rainfall in the U.S.)
- What your soil is like (clay, sand, loam, soil pH extremes, volume of organic matter)
- Terrain challenges (rocky terrain, high water table, slope)
- Barriers (physical limitations, contamination concerns)
- What’s under the proposed garden area (grass, vigorous weeds, pavement)
- The composition of the paths between garden beds (grass, dirt, wood chips, gravel)
All of this information will help you choose a garden bed style that is right for you.
11 Reasons to Grow in Raised Vegetable Garden Beds
Although there are many styles of beds, raised vegetable garden beds can be beneficial in a wide range of circumstances. It’s important to note that raised beds can be built with a variety of different materials.
Let’s take a look at the pros of growing in raised vegetable garden beds.
Pro #1: Improve Soil
Raised beds allow you to add organic soil amendments and compost (homemade or store bought) to build up and improve garden soil. Soil amendments added to in-ground beds, however, may fall away without the raised bed container to hold them in.
Many gardeners deal with challenges like heavy clay, extreme sand, pH challenges, or construction fill. Adding lots of organic matter is the fastest way to improve soil.
Side note: In a no-till garden, fungal networks and soil organisms release sticky exudates that hold soil together. These aren’t typically present in a new garden bed, which is why the raised bed frame can be so beneficial. Fungal networks develop in time and hold soil together (whether in a raised bed or an in-ground bed).
See: Transitioning to a No-Till Garden and How To Improve Clay Soil in 6 Steps
The process of building a raised vegetable garden bed at the end of my driveway is underway!
Grow a garden that’s both productive and manageable with my Complete Garden Planning System, which includes practical tools for planning your season from seed to harvest.
Pro #2: Outsmart the Rock with Raised Vegetable Garden Beds
Rocky soil can make life terrible at planting time. Raised vegetable garden beds allow deep roots to grow without an annual fight with the tiller or shovel. Win!
Along the same lines, if you are short on growing space, consider building raised beds on top of pavement. We had excellent results with 24-inch-high raised beds built at the end of our driveway.
Pro #3: Beat a Cold Spring
Raised beds heat up faster in the spring, resulting in a longer growing season in areas with long winters. Add a cold frame, and now you’re really cooking for early crops!
Pro #4: Rise Above the Water with Raised Vegetable Garden Beds
Raised beds save vegetable roots from drowning in water. Perhaps you live in a perpetually wet climate, have an extremely wet season, or live in an area with a high water table.
Raised beds improve drainage and allow aeration at the root level.
Pro #5: Stop the Slope
Are you building a garden on a slope? Raised vegetable garden beds can help contain the soil and prevent it from washing away.
See: How to Prevent Soil Erosion in Gardens and on Farms
There are many creative ways to frame beds on a slope, but no matter the material you use, be sure to build it on level.
The check log terrace is one of my favorite, inexpensive ways to build a bed on a slope. However, it doesn’t last as long as other construction options for annual gardening.
Pro #6: Avoid Contamination with Raised Vegetable Garden Beds
Contaminated soils are a concern in many urban and residential yards. It’s always a good idea to test your soil before growing an edible garden.
Raised beds are an absolute must in soil that has been contaminated with lead, arsenic, or chemicals. Invest in building deep beds so that your crops can grow proper roots without tapping into the toxic soil below.
Pro #7: Go Ergonomic
If physical limitations are a reality for you, then raised vegetable garden beds mean less bending over.
Pro #8: Manage Weeds Better with Raised Vegetable Garden Beds
If you deal with a lot of weeds in your garden, then raised vegetable garden beds can come in handy. First of all, raised bed soil tends to be loose, so weeds should come out easier.
You can also prevent weeds from growing in the bed by sheet mulching. Simply lay cardboard on the inside of the bed before adding the soil to smother the weeds. (This method doesn’t work with vining weeds (like bindweed) or weeds with an extensive root system (like thistle).
Raised vegetable garden bed frames keep grass or weeds from creeping in from surrounding pathways. This is a challenge with in-ground beds, which need to be edged frequently to keep the grass out.
Note: Beware of purchasing poor quality compost soil, or you may replace a weedy garden with another weedy garden. I unknowingly purchased poor quality compost at one time, and it instantly changed the quality of my garden. This compost soil is my top pick.
This raised bed is built on my driveway. Build taller beds when building on pavement.
Pro #9: Reduce Soil Compaction
Raised beds form a barrier to keep children, pets, or barnyard animals out.
They also encourage you to manage the beds from the outside rather than stepping in them. Foot traffic is the surest way to compact soil, which reduces aeration and harms soil life.
Compaction can also occur in heavy rains, which pull down heavy soil particles as water drains from the site. Since water drains effortlessly from a raised bed, compaction is less of an issue.
Pro #10: Root Out Surrounding Trees and Digging Pests with Raised Vegetable Garden Beds
It can be frustrating to garden under a mature tree because the large roots can inundate garden soil. These roots seek out the nutrients in your amazing garden soil, and who can blame them?
Likewise, you might have encountered a digging pest that is happy to tunnel into your garden and either eat your crops or the soil life that lives there.
Attach hardware cloth to the bottom of the raised bed frame before adding soil to prevent tree roots and digging pests from taking up residence.
Would you like to grow more food with less effort? Check out my mini guide, The Permaculture Inspired Vegetable Garden.
Pro #11: Extend the Season
Remember that a raised bed generally warm ups faster in the spring (#3 above).
Additionally, it’s super-easy to attach hoops and a plastic cover to a raised bed frame to create a season-extending hoop house.
4 Reasons NOT to Grow in Raised Vegetable Garden Beds
There is no one right solution that works in all situations, and raised vegetable garden beds are no exception. Here are four reasons why raised beds might not be your best bet.
This garden bed bordering my front sidewalk is built with round river rocks for an aesthetically pleasing design.
Con #1: Scorching the Garden in a Hot & Dry Climate
If you live in a hot and dry climate, other solutions might work better than raised vegetable garden beds. Raised beds heat up and dry out faster than in-ground beds. This is great in a cold and wet climate, but perhaps not in a desert climate.
If ‘hot and dry’ describes your growing conditions, seek out more information about an alternative solution: sunken beds.
Which type of bed is right for you depends on your climate, soil type, and any temperature extremes. High desert is different from low desert, for example.
The answer is not cut-and-dry, so before you build an entire garden with all raised beds, try both a raised bed and an in-ground bed. Prepare each bed as best you can, grow the same crop in each, and compare the results.
In my climate for example, we get cold, wet springs (yay for raised beds!) followed by hot, dry summers (typically not as beneficial). I find, however, that the challenge of our dry summers is not so much the lack of rain, but the type of soil I have. Clay soil becomes solid in the absence of moisture.
The organic matter in my raised bed insulates the clay below from moisture loss and keeps it moist and soft. Again, everyone’s conditions are different and produce a different result.
Con #2: Constructing Raised Vegetable Garden Beds Can Be Impractical
Raised beds can be expensive to build when you consider the materials to build the frame and the cost of the soil components to fill it. There is always an expensive and inexpensive way to do anything, but don’t let cost be a barrier.
If the financial investment is causing you stress, in-ground beds will likely work fine. You can tweak them over time to meet your needs or build raised bed as you can.
For tips on how to save on raised beds, see my article How to Start a Garden on a Budget.
Similarly, some people don’t feel confident in their construction skills. Don’t let this stress you out. If it’s not something you want to learn how to do, don’t feel like you *have* to have raised beds. They are not right for everyone.
My new raised beds made from white oak. These took years to budget and save for!
Con #3: Negative Effects on Soil Health?
Raised beds are commonly made from wood that resists fungal and bacterial growth, such as cedar, black locust, or redwood. This wood is slow to rot so your beds last as long as possible. Given the labor involved in creating them, this is beneficial.
However, because these wood types are resistant to fungal and bacterial growth, they may reduce or stifle the beneficial soil life that would naturally populate garden soil.
To avoid this problem, I built raised beds using locally grown and milled white oak, which is slow to rot because the wood is so dense, rather than being slow to rot due to anti-fungal properties.
Con #4: Raised Vegetable Garden Beds Can Restrict Soil Manipulation
Raised vegetable garden beds do not work well with a tiller, so you’ll have to manage them by hand.
Whether you use a digging fork or broadfork, you’ll need to get some leverage behind the tool to work the soil. Having a height advantage over the tool helps, but it’s hard to get that advantage without stepping in the bed (at least, if you’re short like me). Remember that stepping in the bed is a no-no for soil compaction.
Over the years, I’ve learned how to balance on the frame of the bed while working the soil with the digging fork. I can imagine, however, that this balancing act may not be practical for everyone!
Raised vegetable garden beds certainly have many benefits for the gardener, but they are not always the best choice in all situations. I hope this article has helped you weigh the pros and cons to decide if they are right for your garden.
Have you built raised vegetable garden beds? Are there any pros or cons that I didn’t mention?
READ NEXT:
- 5 Weeds You Want in Your Garden
- 6 Flowers to Grow in the Vegetable Garden
- Clay-Busting Plants That Fight Compaction
Collen Chory says
This is going to be my tenth year using raised beds. I’m very happy with production results. They are made with recycled wood and easy to put together. Last two I put in I used cardboard on bottom and filed bed with organic compost, cow manure and leaves. This is my third year using “no till” method. I add chopped leaves to beds in fall and organic cow manure-compost in spring as top layer. Some weeds still come up, but soil underneath is very soft and rich with worms,etc. The only digging I do is to plant seedlings or seeds. Weeds I pull up by hand. I also use organic seaweed and fish emulsion and epsom salt. I had my doubts when I first started with no till but it beats turning over all the soil.
Stephen Pell says
I have had a combination of raised beds, straw bales and containers for two seasons now. I call my effort experimental gardening to see which does best. Tomatoes and okra did better in straw than soil. Peppers did better in the raised beds. We had squash in dirt and zucchini in straw filled containers and both did well. I tried strawberries in a straw filled container and they stayed alive but that was it. Pole beans did quite well in soil filled containers. The cantaloupes were in a soil filled container and did not do well, rotting on the vine. I obviously still have a lot to learn about cantaloupes. Onions did okay in the raised beds, not great. The carrots did not do well in the raised beds, nor did the broccoli. We had lettuce in the raised beds that did okay, then reseeded itself and the second crop was excellent since it was in cooler weather. My garden is in southeast Tennessee between Knoxville and Chattanooga. This year we are cutting back on vegetables and starting more flowers and clover for beehives we will bring in when it’s time later in the spring.
Jen says
Thank you for sharing your experience with the different planting’s of your garden. I’m further north in southwest Ohio and my garden tends on the wet side. I haven’t tried straw bale planting yet, but with your success with the okra, I may try that. It can be hard for okra to get started here because of cool wet soil. Maybe the straw bales would take care of that issue. Do you water the bales to keep them moist? Fertilize?
killoran says
My ‘raised bed’ is a big Jacuzzi bathtub that I picked up for $15 at Habitat for Humanity’s Restore. I wanted something to grow radishes in, because rodents seem to get every single one that I put in the ground. now I’m growing monster sized daikons. It also works well for beets, and here in my part of AZ things are still growing. That may end this week, as a hard freeze is coming in tomorrow! I’m not sure my covers will save them, although everything is considered ‘cold hardy’ or ‘frost resistant.’
Laura says
I live in Southwest Idaho and have had raised beds and in ground gardens for years. Like it was stated above some things grew well in the beds but some things did not. Some things did better directly in the ground. It is hot and dry here in the summer so water is an issue. The beds tended to dry out faster and required more frequent watering which can be an issue if you have water shortages or can only water at certain times. Mulching helps but can become a chore if you have lots of beds to mulch and not enough mulch to cover them all. So weigh your pros and cons and decide what your needs are. I would do some experimenting and see what works for you.
Sue says
I don’t use raised garden beds. I have a good soil and prefer to build that up . I like the idea that I am benefiting other creatures that use the soil. For example In Sydney Australia we have cicadas that live underground for 7 years and I try not to dig or build structures that make it difficult for them to emerge. There are already far too many hard surfaces covering Sydney’s soils. I like it that resident blue tongue lizards can move through the planting’s . So I would add another ‘con’ is the impact on other soul users.
Ethel says
I am a 71 yr. old lady I’m S. W. Georgia. Starting my first raised bed. Very confused about whether to remove the centipede grass or just put heavy cardboard over it. I want to grow tomatoes, squash, peppers & pole beans. Please tell me what you all did. Thanks! Dirt digger in Ga.
Starla says
One of the main pros for me when I put in raised beds was that I could staple hardware cloth to the bottom to create a barrier for our numerous gophers. Prior to doing this, I consistently lost plants throughout my garden (even in wine barrels; they went through the decomposing bottom and pulled plants down into their tunnels one at a time!).
Amy says
Thanks for sharing!
Glenn Gardner says
As to the difficulty of working the raised bed, make several beds 8’ x4’. This allows you to work both sides of the bed easily.
cori warner says
We just spent the last week building raised beds after a very dissappointing Spring garden trying to grow in Oklahoma clay. We used reclaimed cedar fencing to build the boxes, so they were free. The biggest expense was the actual garden soil. But I now have 600 sf of excellent soil to grow in, and just planted the fall garden!
Jim says
Is red oak okay? I can’t find any white oak available locally. The red oak seems incredibly expensive.
Amy says
Red oak is totally fine to use in the garden, but it isn’t as dense as white oak, and may not be as long lasting.