There are many ways to build a raised bed, but today, I will detail how I transformed a front yard with a next-level raised bed garden. Front yard gardens are a great way to take advantage of the real estate you have to grow some fresh, delicious produce. Your crops will make your home look more inviting and lively too! In this post, I will show you all the considerations you need to make to optimize a raised bed for the front of your property, and how to fix problems along the way — as I did.
If you are looking for a more detailed description of everything you need to know about a raised bed, check out my blog post here. I’ve also built a raised bed for a backyard too, if you want to learn about how to customize a mini garden for your backyard!
🧲 Shape
A U-shaped design works beat for access to the plants on all sides. It also supports the growth of any trees in the middle. While a having an obstructing tree is not ideal, it is an issue we need to work around — remember, creative problem-solving is a touchstone of urban farming. That said, any large obstacle would limit what you can grow in the future so avoid setting up your raised bed in inconvenient locations.
🪵 Wood
I love working with cedar for my raised beds. They last long with their natural antibacterial properties and also smell amazing while you’re work with it. I used 2″ × 6″ lumber for the longevity of the raised bed and for structural support over time. To protect things even further, I like to line the bed with landscaping fabric. This provides a nice container for the soil to sit in.
🚰 Irrigation
I chose to have plumbing pipes run around the entire raised bed. This way, when you want to water, you are watering underneath the surface, so you don’t lose water to evaporation nor leaves burning if you water during the day. This technique also prevents against diseases that come from excess moisture on the surface of the ground.
I drilled many holes evenly throughout the pipe and had them facing down. In hindsight, I didn’t need to use such a large pipe because they hogged a lot of space. In the future, I would opt for smaller ones so there would be more soil for the food to grow in.
🔨 Get your complete guide to building a raised bed here.
🪴 Soil composition
Start with good drainage. I like to have a base of rocks that will allow the water to flow easily. The soil I bought has a great mixture of essential trace minerals and perlite to bring air and space into the soil.
💧 Watering
I got an automated timer for the garden hose to water for a short period every morning. I admit, it is hard doing an automated watering system when you are not in a controlled setting. To make sure water didn’t accumulate, I added drainage to the end of the irrigation piping. I also installed a metal mesh over the drain as I didn’t want any little critters infiltrating the watering system.
💰 Cost
The total cost for this project was $1200, with the cedar, soil, and labour as the main expenses. As you know, cedar is not a cheap material, but it is a worthwhile investment in the long run of growing food. Soil is a really expensive commodity, and it is very important to start the composting process early if you want to mitigate this expense.
🥬 What we grew in the raised bed
Since this is a west-facing land and there was a new tree growing on it, we found ourselves limited to shade crops, so we grew mainly leafy greens and herbs. They did rather well, and we were able to get three rotations of plants in the first growing year.
🧠 What we learned from this project
- The watering pipe doesn’t need to be so wide. I used a 3” pipe, but I could have easily gotten away with 2” or even a 1” pipe. The pipe also took up a lot of room in the raised bed.
- The pipe should be placed closer to the surface of the soil. Since the pipe was buried below the soil and was 3” wide, the watering didn’t start until 6” from the surface of the plants. This can be okay, but when we started to water, we had to do a combination of hand watering and using the irrigation system.
- The location was not ideal: the tree quickly took over and reduced the types of crops we could cultivate and slowed down the growing process.
Updated August 25, 2021. Originally published February 18, 2020
