My feed
Premium

Please
or
to access all these features

Find tips and tricks to make your garden or allotment flourish on our Gardening forum.

Gardening

raised beds for veg

11 replies

sphil · 21/02/2008 13:16

I want to build some raised beds for vegetables on an exisiting patio. Can I just build the beds straight onto the paving slabs? I'm sure i read somewhere that this is possible as long as you leave drainage holes at the bottom of the vertical walls of the beds.

How high would the walls need to be for optimal veg growing?

OP posts:
Report
Mung · 21/02/2008 14:41

I am really inexperienced, so I don't feel that I can give much advice here.
Surely you need to consider what you are going to grow. When I grew potatoes they were quite deep. I have a bit of concrete in a small patch of my bed about a spade depth down and it has been a pain.
I know a lot can be planted in pots. Have you thought of that instead?

Report
BoysOnToast · 22/02/2008 19:00

also pretty inexperienced but;

depends if youre growing root veg or topofsoil things like cabbages, i would think (depth)

a combination of potato pots/bags, with staggered planting to stretch out harvest time and a raised bed of about, i dunno, 20-30cms for cabbages, leeks, beans maybe... toms are good in growbags.

Report
Sixofone · 22/02/2008 19:17

We put two sleepers on top of each other so I guess about 1 1/2 ft deep? But we have earth under ours.

Report
snorkle · 22/02/2008 23:34

sixofone have you lined the bed, or do you just grow flowers in it? Real sleepers are supposed to exude toxic stuff and not recomended for growing veg in/by. Some people reckon you shouldn't use any treated wood in fact.

Report
JudgeNutmeg · 22/02/2008 23:52

We have these straight onto our patio. They drain beautifully through some drilled holes.

Raised Beds

Report
sphil · 24/02/2008 11:28

Thanks everyone
Problem is solved as we've decided to site the beds beside the patio on soil. I found a company on e-bay that makes wooden beds to order - DH reckons he'd be hard pressed to buy the materials more cheaply!

OP posts:
Report
Corriewatcher · 24/02/2008 19:14

Sphil

Would you mind posting a link to the ebay site? I'm interested in wooden beds too at the moment, but completely hopeless at making anything like that. Thanks

Report
Sixofone · 24/02/2008 19:22

Hi snorkle, they are not 'old' sleepers (i.e. the ones with toxic chemicals in, but instead sort of bare wood ones. We got them from a local landscaping centre, think we paid £80 for 8 of them inc delivery.

Report
snorkle · 24/02/2008 19:28

oh that sounds good sixofone, I'm glad. It would be a shame to grow your own veg and accidently poison yourself in the process.

Report
sphil · 26/02/2008 21:47

Sorry Corriewatcher - haven't looked at this thread for a few days. here you go

OP posts:
Report
sphil · 26/02/2008 21:49

You need to scroll down as they do an off-line service. Not sure if they have any more on e-bay itself.

OP posts:
Report
Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.