How To Make Tall Raised Garden Beds

Mr. TIDBITS is here to share his tutorial on how to make DIY tall raised garden beds. Here we'll walk you through our process for building these cedar raised garden beds. They actually come together pretty easily!

outdoor table and chairs in between tall raised garden beds

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With the warmer weather upon us, hubby gets real excited about working outside. Being in a brand new home on 25 acres, we still have almost no landscaping, since our priority has just been getting the inside more comfortable.

But we both really wanted to get a little garden spot going for fresh food, but also mostly to get our kids involved and learn something new.

young girl is planting vegetable plants in a raised garden bed

We thought this spot on the side of the house would be perfect to fill with tall raised garden beds.

Kevin made six of them for each member of the family to enjoy and care for themselves.

It has been so much fun to get the kids involved! We let them pick what seeds and plants they wanted. We got them little fairy garden sets and barnyard sets to make it even more fun.

It's been an absolute pleasure to see them enjoy this process and get excited about gardening.

We wanted to make them waist high raised garden beds so planting, weeding and harvesting would be much better on our backs.

Of course that means you would need a lot of soil, so we filled the beds first with as much natural and organic material as we could find around our property, which is great for nutrients and drainage as well.

I'm excited to show you how we made these so you can make your own!

outdoor table and chairs in front of three raised garden beds

Supplies for Raised Garden Beds

Wood

We used rough cut cedar wood to build the structure, and leftover tin from building our pole barn home – which saved us a lot of money!

Why should you use cedar wood on garden beds?

Cedar has the benefits of being bacterial and fungal resistant. It is also coefficient, which means even on hot days it stays cool which is better for plants. And because of the natural oils in cedar, the wood stays preserved a lot longer than other woods.

You can buy treated wood, but we were worried about those chemicals seeping into the soil and into the food, so we didn't go that route.

Cost of a tall garden bed

The cost of just the wood for each garden bed came to around $95 each, which is much higher than it should be due to the current inflation on wood cost. We were surprised to see that cedar was actually the cheaper route to go than pine – highly unusual.

The tin was free for us, as you'll learn below.

Tin

This tin was just leftover for us from building the house. It is actually a tin that is made to snap together and look like shiplap or planks. We bought it locally but I found this online store that has an example of this type of tin siding.

slabs of tin being used for tall garden beds

So if you can't find this exact kind of tin, you could really use any type of tin siding and many of the places that supply the tin can cut it to size. I think it would still be cheaper than using just wood.

How to Make High Waisted Raised Garden Beds

Wood Purchase Sizes

For 1 garden box, you will need to purchase:

Six 8 foot long 2 x 4 rough cut cedar boards
Three 8 foot long 2×6 pine boards

Frame Wood Cuts

Cut 4 cedar boards at 68 inches long, which will give you 28 inches left over.
Using two 8 foot cedar boards, cut them into eight 24 inch boards.

Or, if you have different size boards to start with, make sure you have these final cuts:

Four 68 inch cedar boards
Four 28 inch cedar boards
Eight 24 inch cedar boards

sections of cedar wood laid out on garage floor

Wood Preparation

Then we used a Kreg Pocket Hole Jig to make two holes on each end of the 24" pieces.

Make the Garden Bed Wood Frame

You will build 2 frames with two 68″ long boards for the top and bottom and two 24″ boards for the sides.

We used 2 inch Kreg weather resistant screws.

Build 2 more side frames with the 28″ boards and 24″ boards.

Then you will attach them together by screwing the 4 frames together with the 68-inch longboards outside of the two 32 inch wide frames. I used 3-inch deck screws to connect everything.

Make the Top Ledge

Finally, for the wood part was the top ledge, which we both thought would look and function nice if it was wider.

For the top, we cut two 2×6 boards to 64 inches long on the shorter edge with a 45° angle on each end. We used a third 2×6 board to cut the two end pieces at 27 inches long on the shorter edge, again with a 45° angle on each end.

Attach the Tin

We used a metal blade on my miter saw to cut the tin to 28 inches long. Then we used 1" self-tapping screws to attach the pieces to the inside of the box. I used leftover 2×6 boards to lift the tin to the proper position prior to attaching them to the frames. We decided to run our tin vertically for design purposes.

If you decide to go horizontal then you will need to cut an 8 ft piece of tin at 64 inches long for the side panels and then you will have enough leftover to cut the 28-inch piece on the ends. You would then only need 2 8 foot sheets of tin for this project.

No matter what time of year it is, I think getting some garden beds built will always be useful and beautiful for your home.

DIY Raised Garden Beds FAQs

How tall should raised garden beds be?

A very comfortable hight for a waist high raised garden bed is 3 feet tall. We designed these raised garden beds to be waist-high so planting, weeding, and harvesting would be easier on our backs.

What do you put on the bottom of an elevated garden bed?

Your garden bed can sit directly on top of your ground, and you do not need to build a base. A dirt or grassy ground is just fine to sit your garden bed on top of.

What do you fill tall raised beds with?

Fill your garden bed with organic waist, rocks or other bulky filler so you don't have to use as much topsoil and the soil has plenty of drainage. We filled them with rocks and fallen tree branches.

Which wood is best for raised garden beds?

If you want to see more of our gardening posts on TIDBITS.

Must know tips for container gardening
How to make natural wood plant markers
The best flower gardening books
Summer dreams planning pack

Be sure to come on back as we celebrate the art of homemaking, and inspire you with more inspiration for do-it-yourself living!