Raised Garden Beds (and More!) from Reclaimed Wood

Step 3 Raised Garden Beds

I've been told that in the overly wet western Oregon climate, raised garden beds are great for keeping your soil drained.  I've certainly had gardens in the past that got way too wet and had plants struggle to keep up with all that water.  This year, I'll see if raised beds make a difference.

I built a whole bunch of these raised beds in a variety of sizes.  For the largest ones I double stacked 2x6's, the ones I got from my dad and the ones I got from my coworker's old roof.  On the smaller beds I used fence pickets stacked three high and two boards thick.

The design is really simple, I just cut the pickets and 2x6's to the lengths I wanted and took either a fence post or a stringer and cut a piece to put in the corner and cobbled it all together.  Take a look at the pictures below, I'll make sure to include photo notes.  For the smaller beds I used nails reclaimed from the boards, but on the larger beds I wanted to be able to replace boards if they rot out, so I used wood screws coated with some sort of anti corrosion substance.