Show Us Your Raised Bed Designs and Ideas

Burnsy · **Posted:** Mon Oct 04, 2010 12:05 am

One thing I like doing is coming up with ways of using recycled materials or different materials and ways to contruct raised beds. To help with this I often search for raised beds to look at what others have used and how they have constructed their beds so I figure a thread based around different materials and style of constuction for raised beds would be a great resource.

To kick things off here are some of mine:
Half an old heavy gauge 44 slavaged from roadside pickup

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Cuts from an old tank and heavy duty hose both salvaged from roadside pickup

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Spotted gum timber I milled from salvaged urban logs (from tree loppers) for the base along with field hay sections and bailing twine for outer support filled with pea straw for a potato bed.

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Burnsy · **Posted:** Mon Oct 04, 2010 12:14 am

Continued................

Discounted jarrah sleepers from Bunnings, cut out and then joined with 12mm reo bar

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Trial wicking bed from corrugated cover sheets (builders waste), milled spotted gum, treated pine offcuts and tin fence capping

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My favourite and to be repeated (as rectangular wicking beds) design is this one I came up with myself. Trimdeck rook sheeting which is a nice heavy gauge sourced for free from a house up the road that was being reroofed. these are joined with 100x100 jarrah posts that I milled from a farm paddock before rebating them out to enclose what would otherwise be sharp corners on the bed. This was a little time consuming but the end result is worth it.

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gnash · **Posted:** Mon Oct 04, 2010 12:15 am

it's amazing what you can do if you put your mind to it :thumb:

Burnsy · **Posted:** Mon Oct 04, 2010 12:25 am

That it is Gnash

More.....................

My cherry tomato drum, a copper vacola steriliser picked up at scab and grab, no holes so the thermometer well on the other side acts as a wicking bed overflow

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Marri garden beds I constructed at school using marri milled from salvaged trees removed from new building sites locally

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Simo · **Posted:** Mon Oct 04, 2010 12:44 pm

Wicking beds made from free recycled jarrah and cut up water tank (background)

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Bath tubs (road side shopping)

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Wheelbarrow

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earthbound · **Posted:** Thu Oct 07, 2010 7:09 pm

Man, you guys are all making me feel guilty.....

Great variety of beds there Burnsy, love the way you have joined those sleepers with a pin in the corner... :clap:

fizzyj · **Posted:** Fri Oct 08, 2010 9:37 pm

Great work burnsy. Where do you get the marri from, ie how do you source such fine timber?

What do the termites think of Marri or is it Karri that they love?

I need to do something in the next year but wasn't sure of materials. ie to go with recycled jarrah or pick up some of the tin from the storm damage back in March similar to your trim deck solution.

earthbound · **Posted:** Sat Oct 09, 2010 1:23 pm

They love Karri, and don't mind a bit Marri... Still I made a raised bed once out of thick pine slabs and it lasted for a few years, actually ended up rotting rather than being eaten by termites.

Burnsy · **Posted:** Mon Oct 11, 2010 10:05 pm

fizzyj wrote:

Great work burnsy. Where do you get the marri from, ie how do you source such fine timber?

What do the termites think of Marri or is it Karri that they love?

I need to do something in the next year but wasn't sure of materials. ie to go with recycled jarrah or pick up some of the tin from the storm damage back in March similar to your trim deck solution.

I like the trim deck the best as I said, I will get some more detailed shots of how it goes together next time I make one. I use to own a portable timber mill (lucas mill) so milled the marri myself from logs that tree loppers wanted to get rid of. I found the marri to be a good cheap source of hardwood sleepers and although termites will eat it they do not love it and they will probably last as log as a corrugated iron bed as long as you don't have a huge termite problem.

You can buy marri sleepers from Guns timbers pretty cheap (comparable to what I could sell them for when I milled it on a per cube basis) but they sell them in 200x100 size which is pretty heavy compared to the 200x50 I used.

Big_Dave · **Posted:** Tue Oct 12, 2010 10:47 am

I know the general concensus is to steerclear of Treated Pine for garden beds.....but..... if you knew how verocious the Termites were up here then you dont have much choice and that is what Im using. I also want the look of wood so thats why i havent gone with any other materials. Ive heard that the levels of leaching of the copper chrome arsenate can be neglible and that lining the bed with plastic will help.

Food&Fish · **Posted:** Tue Oct 12, 2010 7:05 pm

I think you will find mostley they use non toxic treatment now

Tristrin · **Posted:** Sun Oct 31, 2010 1:12 pm

Strawberries growing in an IBC with slots cut in the sides

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mint growing in a barrel

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gnash · **Posted:** Sun Oct 31, 2010 1:45 pm

Top idea with strawberry IBC :thumb:

dufflight · **Posted:** Sun Oct 31, 2010 2:11 pm

I got another of those aquaplated raised beds today. Still digging a sump and needed a place for the dirt. +1 on the IBC strawberry tower, that won't dry out in a hurry.

chillidude · **Posted:** Mon Nov 01, 2010 12:07 pm

Yeah, I'm with Gnash - brilliant idea with the strawberry IBC Trisrin - looks fantastic.

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