Level up your gardening with raised beds
Have you struggled with gardening directly in the soil of your front or backyards?
You’re not alone. While Sonoma County soil is ripe with nutrients that enable crops to thrive, it’s also rife with pests like pocket gophers and moles. These critters can destroy a well-functioning garden in the blink of an eye.
Gopher wire and canvas help, but the best way to level up your gardening is with raised beds. Raised beds not only bring an aesthetic value to your garden, they’re also functional. There are many benefits to gardening with raised beds, including:
- Improved drainage
- Reduced weeds
- Protection from pests
- More comfort
- Better control over soil
- Ability to be moved
Raised beds don’t limit what you can plant. Vegetables that thrive in raised beds include: tomatoes, carrots, turnips, cucumbers, lettuce and radishes. Fruits that do well in raised beds include strawberries and melons. Raised beds are great for herb gardens, especially rosemary, oregano, dill and parsley. Flowers love raised beds too; use them for your perennials and easy-to-grow flowers like sunflowers and marigolds.
Raised beds also provide an opportunity to let your personality shine within your garden. Aside from the typical wooden raised bed, there are many everyday items that can be repurposed to create an outside-of-the-(literal)-box raised bed. Some fun examples include:
- Wheelbarrows
- Metal tables
- Wooden ladders with pots
- Old tires
- Repurposed crates
- Galvanized steel tubs
- Wine barrels
- Old culvert pipes
- Dresser drawers
- Tree stumps
You can find pre-made raised beds at most local nurseries and hardware stores (See the Gardener’s Resource Guide Lists in the back for the closest shop near you!), but you can also make your own! There are myriad DIY instructions on YouTube. If video isn’t your style of learning and you prefer reading instructions, the internet also offers more options than you need. We like the instructions at Gardenary, which include step-by-step photos for a raised bed for under $100: www.gardenary.com/blog/how-to-build-a-raised-garden-bed-for-just-100.
