We have three borderless, raised vegetable beds, and they work fine. They are surrounded by paths covered with wood chip mulch. Once a year we rake back the mulch from the gardens' edges, till the gardens, push up the edges with a wide-bladed shovel (known as a snow shovel when we lived up north, now it's a garden edger!)to make a berm, and rake the mulch back into the path.
Our gardens are too large to edge with wood or cement blocks, and this makes maintaining them easier. The paths act as a grass barrier and the raised beds improve drainage, which is important in our clayey soil.

Hi Marlingardener! Thanks for the reply. Does it matter what type of mulch?
I would really like to mulch my whole yard but from what I have been reading, mulching brings bugs! We have a small area and tending to a grass lawn is just too much work for me.
I just can't seem to win. I don't want to use pesticides yet I am swarming with red ants.
How High are your beds?
Thanks!

When I first moved to my house a few years ago, I used whatever I could find to edge my beds... small rocks, recycled bricks and pavers left out in people's trash (yes, I'm a shameless dumpster diver!), scrap wood... it worked quite well as I gradually built up my beds.

You can also just use 2x4's which are quite inexpensive.

I have mounded beds and it works great! When we lived on a hill I had salvaged cement blocks on the bottom of the hill sides of my beds to terrace the hillside with. With my flat little garden now the nounds work just fine, I'm sure it slumps some but not really extreme. You can also plant the edges/the slopes on the sides so that your onions or lettuce or spinach or a cover crop keeps the soil from slumping.

I have woodchips in the path also, some are from a tree trimmer service that I got for free, others I bought from the garden place. It is pine chip mulch and pretty good size pieces, anywhere from the size of a computer mouse to a half dollar. It's not the dyed kind because I didn't want to add extra chemicals to the soil even if they do say it's safe.

I guess having the wood does bring in bugs, it allows a place for them to hide and breed, a good bad thing I guess, you should see the worms under the mulch!! thankfully I don't have a problem with ants wouldn't like that.

My highest bed is probably 6-8 inches higher than the path, some are about even with the path.

You don't have to have the mulch in the paths, you could keep the paths in grass, either whatever is already there in your yard or you could do something like an annual rye grass that you harvested for the green part for composting.

I like not having edging on my beds because whatever you might use is going to take up space and for me, space is at a premium so I don't want to take up 2 to 8 inches on each side of my beds just to keep the soil straight edged.

It doesn't matter what kind of mulch is in the paths--whatever is cheap and easy to walk on, and can be raked back when you need to till (that way it doesn't end up in your vegetable bed). I use rotted hay as mulch in the vegetable gardens--it's cheap around here, as in free, and works to keep weeds down without matting. It can also just be tilled in at the end of a growing season if you want.
Our beds start out about 8" high, and end up at 6" or a little less by the end of the season due to settling.

g'day halime,

mulching holds it all together, too easy.

len

Here is a link that might be useful: lens garden page

IMHO... You can get away pretty cheap with 1"x 6" Boards and a few concrete stakes

Here is a link that might be useful:

or for a couple of dollars more a cinderblock perimeter,(you can plant in the cinderblock holes also,both are cheap but the cinderblocks (1.39 each) will last forever,,,all nice and contained..

Here is a link that might be useful:

Yes, and no mulch at all for keeping it in place. The black plastic you see here on a portion of the garden is strictly for soil-warming & weed prevention. I effectively used Preen for weed control on the rest of the bed (in the paths only), and kept the rest of it hand-weeded.
Rain didn't do any harm to any of the beds.

clicky-links:

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I have wide beds, the composted mulch is so deep in the pathes it doesn't look like a deep bed garden any more. But i have hand dug it down to the sub soil so I have extra deep beds. Now after 8 years of garden here the soil is so nice and soft it takes little to nothing to get it planted.

WOW!!!!!
You guys are great! Thanks for all the advice and the pictures. Now I need to get my brain and big butt in gear. :-)

I have wide raised beds...about 7 to 10 feet wide without borders and love it that way. With lots of organic matter there is no problem keeping the soil in place as the soil is like a sponge for rain. No need for anything between the beds. I keep the paths narrow. What little walking on the beds is no problem at all.

I have been watching this thread with keen interest. But I see a lot of you are talking about mulch bringing in bugs. Here in the south that is a real issue for anyone that owns a house. How bad of a problem is mulch and bugs? So bad you have to exterminate the house more often?

thanks!

I am now thinking raised borderless beds...

Ezzirah,
We are in Central Texas, bug capital of the world! We use no-float cypress mulch in the beds near the house. No bug problems brought in or encouraged by the mulch. We haven't seen bugs in the garden paths, either, and that is cheap chipped wood mulch.

My beds are 'borderless' raised beds, not by design, but as a consequence of cultivation. I have to be diligent to keep out the rhizomes of surrounding grass.

Regarding mulch on paths harboring insects; some insects are beneficial and I have to wonder if they are sheltered in the wood chip mulch, too. I think I am benefiting from my garden being so close to the fence where my neighbor's yard is allowed to grow wild except for occasional mowing. The beneficial insects have a place to live during the 'off season'. I seem to have few problems with insect damage during the growing season.

I have also experience that wood mulch, fiberus material invite bugs and insects.
The prominant ones are thermite, ants and pill bugs.
Although they do not directly offend plants, but I find them annoyong.
Here down south, there are lots of pine trees and therefore
lots of pine needle, called PINE STRAW. you can rake some
from UNDER YOUR PINE TREES OR buy them by bales at Very reasonable cost.
They last about a season or two and decay making a good soil amendment.

Hey Guys,
I have been stressing because my husband is ill and he MIGHT have cancer.
We have a 12 year old and I am just stressing out, losing my hair etc :-(

Question: The soil to be used in the beds:

Can I just take mushroom compost (I have tons)and mix it with some bags of worm castings and some Jungle Growth vegetable potting mix (new bags from last year)along with misc potting mix from the local nursery and just toss that all together as a raised bed? I am burnt out from worrying and need quick beds because I haven't planted ANY seeds and I think my time is running out.....

Oh, These are the seeds I have, Summer Squash, Jenny Lind Melons, Malabar Spinach, Cucumbers, Pole Beans, And Cheyenne Bush Squash (pumpkin) and also determinate and indeterminate Tomatoes.

Thanks,

Halime:-(
PS I also have a tons of Organic Borage seeds that I am going to sprinkle about...lol