How to Build Raised Garden Beds

When I was first building my garden, I didn’t know where to turn. Online information was either too granular or too vague. So I hope to make this a middle ground, where you can learn how to build raised garden beds, my favorite gardening tools, as well as beginner gardening resources that helped me build and maintain my first outdoor garden beds!

This is less of a stringent how-to and more of a documentation of my garden bed journey. Okay, you can scroll down for a very detailed how-to for building garden beds, but after that, how you fill them and use them is really your own journey. I’ve added as many of my favorite resources as I can, and I hope you find this helpful!

The measurements for our raised beds

I opted to build two garden beds that were 4-feet by 6-feet and 20 inches tall. Initially I wanted more, but I’m glad I started small. I don’t feel overwhelmed and this gives me plenty of room to grow a wide variety of vegetables. But yes…I do want to build a third bed ASAP.

If you are planning a vegetable garden and are placing your beds on top of concrete or a hard surface, I suggest a depth of 18-24 inches. If your garden bed will be on grass, dirt or another form of land, you can make your beds 12 inches tall. Just know that the more room you have for roots, the bigger and healthier your garden can be!

Other raised bed options

We looked into other raised bed options and found many we liked! I just knew I wanted to design the aesthetic around my garden beds, which is why we opted for the homemade option. But here were a few of our favorites:

Epic Gardening Metal Garden Beds – I appreciate the variation in heights and sizes and the assembly looks so easy. However, the heights weren’t the best fit for our gardening needs at the time, we wanted a middle-ground!

Using Planter Wall Blocks – Instead of drilling planks together, there is the option of using affordable concrete planter blocks as corners, then just slotting in the planks. Our surface is uneven, so I decided this wouldn’t be as solid as we would need it to be. However, I’ve seen gardeners who are doing 12-inch tall beds on grass have great success with these! The one other negative? They can get pretty heavy.

What to get at the hardware store (and what to ask)

Going to get lumber at the hardware store initially stressed me out, but after mapping it out, what we needed was pretty simple.

When making a garden bed, there are a few things to take into consideration:

1. You will need 2-inch by 2-inch lumber to hold and drill the planks together. This is sturdier than just drilling the planks together and by far the best way to assemble the beds.
2. You will need a plank across the bottom of the beds. These garden beds are about to face a lot of pressure from the interior soil. Soil is heavy, and as dirt gets saturated it will continue to push out the walls of the beds. You need one plank going across the center to provide extra stability for your garden beds.
3. It is good practice to line the bottom of your garden beds with chicken wire. This is good for both drainage and to prevent pests! If you are putting your bed on a dirt surface, cardboard is another great tool and will accomplish the same goal.

Your shopping list for one garden bed

To make one 6-foot by 4-foot garden bed, you will need:

• Four 10-inch by 2-inch planks, cut to 6 feet in length
• Five 10-inch by 2-inch planks, cut to 4 feet in length (one of these will serve as the piece across the bottom of the bed)
• Four 2-inch by 2-inch planks, cut to 2 feet in length
• One 2-feet by 25-feet roll of chicken wire
• Exterior wood screws, 2 1/2 inches
• Clamps to hold your wood together while screwing the edges together
• And if you’re curious about my drill + impact driver, I’ll link it here!

What to do at the lumber yard or hardware store

First, get a big cart and be prepared to do a little heavy lifting. Usually 10-by-2s (the planks) average eight to twelve feet long. Do a bit of math and see how many planks you will need to get the cuts listed above. Add these to your cart.

Find the employee manning the wood cutting station and request the pieces listed above. They will be able to cut them for you and will give you any extra sections of the planks. It’s always good to have a bit extra, and you’ll usually be paying for the whole piece of wood, anyway.

How we built the garden beds

This is the big tutorial (with lots of photos!), but I promise, building a garden bed is easier than IKEA furniture. Just make sure your cuts are right, and everything else will be very intuitive.

STEP 1 – Connect the 2x2s to the 6-foot planks

Use a ruler to mark a plumb line two inches into the edge of the 6-foot plank. These two inches are where your other plank will slot right in.

Use clamps to ensure the 2×2 piece won’t move, and drill a hole into the lumber, then follow up with a screw. Use at least two screws per plank.

Adhere the 2x2s on either side of the 6-foot plank, making sure to mark in two inches each time.

Step 2 – Slot in the 4-foot planks

We had a bit of trial-and-error with the best way to do this, but we found the easiest way to slot in the 4-foot planks and complete the garden bed was to lay out the 6-foot pieces as if we were building the bed, then slot the 4-foot pieces right in.

Then, making sure not to hit the spots where there are already screws, drill in two additional holes and attach the pieces with two additional screws (see images below). You will be drilling into the 2×2 piece.

This is easiest with two people, so one person can hold the planks level while the other person drills.

Tip: Do this step where you want to place your beds. After this they become quite heavy and hard to move!

Step 3 – Attach the interior plank and line the edges with chicken wire

For a wood garden bed, drainage and stability are crucial. The reason we attach the 2x2s to the 6-foot plank is so that the interior of the garden beds is 4-feet even. This means you can slot in a 4-foot plank across the center to help stabilize the beds and relieve any pressure from the soil.

Slot this plank in, then drill in the holes from the outside to attach it to the garden beds.

For good drainage, line the garden beds with chicken wire. Let the chicken wire come up the sides so that it will “cradle” the soil, then use a staple gun to make sure the chicken wire stays in place. This will prevent pests from burrowing under while also providing good drainage.

Now you’ve just made beautiful garden beds!

Stain any unfinished edges, and enjoy your work!

The stain I used

It is so important that you purchase untreated wood when building your garden beds. Treated wood will impact your soil, potentially leach in harmful chemicals and hurt the growth of your plants, so it is best to buy untreated wood and then stain only the outside yourself.

You want an outdoor-friendly stain, since your garden beds will be taking on a lot of outdoor wear.

The stain I chose is Olympic’s Semi-Transparent Exterior Wood Stain + Sealer in Chestnut Brown. It’s good to look for both a stain and sealer so you can ensure the exterior of your wood is protected. I like the look of semi-transparent best, since it lets the natural grain of the wood show through.

What I planted

I have a mix of shaded areas and direct sunlight in my garden. It’s proven challenging to grow plants that thrive in those different environments so close together, but these are the plants I selected:

• Kale – This is a good crop for the high-shade areas, but I had to resign myself to knowing it will start to flower when the weather gets too warm. But hopefully it will return to me in the fall!
• Celery – A heavy feeder, so it goes where the most water goes. I liked the idea of a plant where I could tear off a few stalks and it can continue to grow from the center out.
• Cherry tomatoes – I already know this garden will thrive in the summer, so a vine cherry tomato that I can trellis and grow vertically was definitely on my list.
• Beefsteak tomatoes – This is a bush tomato that I’m choosing to trellis, and I’m excited to see how they turn out!
• Zucchini – I chose this crop because it is notoriously easy. I wanted one summer vegetable that I couldn’t mess up!
• One pumpkin vine – Transparently, I don’t recommend this (lol), but Eric had a pumpkin seed growing from Halloween, so we wanted to see what it could do in the garden! Turns out, it has already taken over the place.
• Ghost eggplant – A white, round variety of eggplant. I’m new to this variety and can’t wait to see how it will grow.
• Lavender – This is a perennial that we wanted for our potting plants around the garden. Not only are they pretty, we can use them in cooking + cleaning supplies, too!

Why I opted for nursery plants vs. starting from seed

Starting vegetable plants indoors from seed is a cheaper option than buying nursery plants, but I opted against it because it requires a lot of interior space and special equipment.

For me, having time to choose my plants later in the season felt better than committing to seeds in the winter. However my friend Carmen has some wonderful resources on her Substack + YouTube, so please check her out for all your starting-from-seed needs!

The gardening resources I’m using

There are so many resources out there, and I feel so lucky to have them.

I was gifted The Garden Primer by a lovely member of our community on book tour, and it’s what finally pushed me into the gardening world! The book is definitely old-school, but it’s practical and straightforward, and arguably a little too in-depth, but when it comes to gardening, I want details! You can buy it here.

I used the Garden Planner from Almanac.com, which proved so helpful when it came to picking what plants to use and then choosing their layout. It’s very user-friendly and you just search your plant, then drag and drop it into your garden beds. From there the Almanac will tell you:

1. How much space the plant will need.
2. A growing calendar for that specific plant.
3. Care guide and treatment.
4. What plants are compatible with that plant and can grow well alongside it!

It costs $50 per year to use, but for me as a nervous gardener, it felt more than worth it! The site itself is also rich with gardening resources.

The gardening tools I’m using

I already have a few tools I’m absolutely in love with.

Tomato Ladders from Gardeners.com – I was worried these would be eyesores in my garden but they blend right in! I took my time figuring out how I wanted to trellis my tomatoes, and I feel like this gives the perfect support without caging them in or blocking too much light from my other plants.

Pepper and Eggplant Ladders – Same ladder energy, different height and width. I love that they slide in easily to the dirt, but if you want to avoid root damage, put these in right when you plant your vegetables.

Any gardening extras!

I’ll continue to update this section as I continue to build out the garden, but the clogs all of you are obsessed with:

My Rothy’s Gardening Clogs! I recommend them whole-heartedly, of course.