More information would be useful, NYjohnny.

Are you making a retaining wall which will have the bed above it?

Are you constructing a specialised bed for, say, alpines, or bulbs?

Is your garden mostly formal with stone and concrete, or is it more 'organic'?

How high did you want to build? Did you want to plant into the wall itself - either between the rock material or in planting holes?

Did you want to stack the slate or will you mortar it together? Will it be vertical, or have a batter?

Will you be doing the work alone, or have help?

(Personally, if I was wanting to make a dry stone wall with planting niches and a top planting area - slate sounds gorgeous, and the species I could use...Mmmm.)

Thank you so much for posing those questions. I think I know the answers but I will spend the winter thinking about them and be much better prepared come March. I think slate would look nice, I am glad you agree. I am basically not looking to plant in the wall, just in the raised bed. A light shade area, so I am thinking small azaleas, hosta, etc. I would like the wall at least 1.5 feet high, but wide (30 feet. and 5 feet deep). It will be going against a solid wood fence, I am assuming this is ok to use as the backdrop as I am trying to disguise it with the bed and plantings. I am also assuming I will need two flats of flat bluestone slate. I am not sure about your other questions, but will do more thinking. Thanks again.

Hi,
I have a question that I am hoping someone can answer. I am getting ready to make a raised bed for a vegetable garden. What kind of wood would you recommend that I use? The beds are going to be 3' by 25' and then another one 3' by 35'. I was going to use railroad ties and I had people tell me that they are toxic so I decided against that. Then I was was going to use cedar. Our local lumber co. has these good heavy board that are 14' long but someone told me that my plants won't grow if I use cedar. What would you recommend. This is my first garden and I want to do it right. We have a small yard but if I plan correctly it good yeild alot of food for my family.

Thanks in advance!

Sheri

Sheri, you don't have to actually raise the beds with an edging. You can just mound it up. Of course, this doesn't work well in an area where there will still be grass. I have about nine raised beds, but they are within an area that gets mulched. I'm using straw for the mulch this year, then in fall, I will rake it up onto the beds. Next year I'll go with either more straw, or woodchips, free from a landscape company. (Probably the straw. I get bales from a place that uses them for a children's play area, where the bales sit outside for a month, making them unusable for bedding, but still OK for my garden. They are free for the hauling.)

I also use a 'sheet compost,' or 'lasagna' bed method. For more information on that, come on over to the soil,compost and mulch forum, and read the FAQs. Lots of good info there.

Best of luck on your new garden.

Cedar will work fine for a framing material. There is no reason why your plants will not grow if you use that.

I tried raised beds with no frames for a season but found them to be difficult to manage and maximize in terms of space. The rounded or sloping edges were difficult to plant in and impossible to keep covered with mulch. That is why I converted over to wooden frames.

Good Gardening!

Aubrey

I had a huge raised bed that I framed with cardboard (and disguised with pinestraw mulch). It held up through the entire season. After the winter, the cardboard broke down into the soil (suited me fine) and the bed kept its original height and form.

I use pine 2x10's or 2x12's and make them 4' wide by 24' long.
I have found that boiled linseed oil works well at retarding the decay of the boards.

I just screwed some corner brackets on the boards to hold the corners together, added a mending plate to tie the 12 footers togeter, and added a few wooden stakes (also with a coating of linseed oil) at 1/3 and 2/3 down the length of the beds. This helped keep the boards from pushing outward so much.

For me, pine is considerably cheaper than cedar. I would expect this is the case most places.

Have fun,

Matt