soil and garden question

[js5020]

I just used regular untreated 2x6 for mine, they may not last as long as treated but no chems to worry about. Before I went with the raised bed I tried to prepare beds in the ground with no border,, took out all the dirt with a box blade to a depth of 12" and screened the dirt, I didn't get very far, had a pile of rocks way bigger than the pile dirt, I was definetly going to need dirt so why go through all the work, I pushed the trench back shut and built boxes. Check out The Official Site of Square Foot Gardening and Mel Bartholomew, Originator and Author,, they don't even use dirt, he uses peat moss, vermiculite, and compost

 

[Chuck52]

I use concrete blocks to make my beds. If you are near a manufacturer, you can often get seconds at about half price. They are still more expensive than untreated lumber, but they last forever. Plus the holes can be handy for holding things like pvc pipe to frame tunnels made of plastic, or shade cloth, or whatever.

I second the comments about using weed seed free components if possible. I've used compost, which I get cheap from a nearby city that composts mainly leaves and tree clippings and such, and that stuff is almost free of weeds. I've also used whatever manure I could get hold of, and that can be simply full of weed seed if it hasn't been composted enough. I've used some fairly fresh cow and horse manure in the fall, just tilling it in and letting it "sheet" compost, and that works OK except for the weed content. This summer one of my beds was so full of grass that I eventually just covered it with plastic and let it bake for a week. That killed off most everything, but it cost me a week of growing in that bed.

Chuck

 

[charlz]

People have also constructed beds from corrugated roofing:

Permanent Raised Bed Gardening: Corrugated Sheet Metal Beds

 

[meadowlarkponds]

anthonyk,

I gardened several years in that same Houston soil and know what you are up against. Compost, compost, compost....even if you bring in top soil, you will still need lots of compost.

A great source of tons and tons of compost material are the neighborhood trash bags filled with lawn clippngs. A lot of people throw large amounts of fertilizer on their yards and then bag up the grass cuttings throwing them out with the trash...it is GOLD, pure GOLD for those heavy clay soils. It will take some time, but once you get a good compost pile working and keep managing it, you can really generate large amounts.

By the way, if you like okra, plant a row in that gumbo...you can grow enough to feed all of Houston. Its about the only thing I found that really likes that soil.

 

[easygo]

If you have cedar on your property you could cut down some of that and use it for frames. It is naturally rot resistant. I use it for fence posts, stack my firewood on it even built a sandbox for my son out of some larger blown down cedar trees.