When you think of “easy raised beds,” you probably think of using pressure-treated wood and a miter saw. That’s the way I used to make my garden beds in spring. A hurried trip to Home Depot or Lowe’s, then a few hours of measuring and cutting and nailing and placing beds. It’s fun, and it looks cool when you’re done.
But then people tell you, “Wait! Pressure-treated lumber is bad for you!” So you start looking around and you find a good supply of cinder blocks. Hey, they may not look classy, but why not? They’ll last forever!
Or maybe the cinder-block raised beds look too ugly for you. Then you use solid blocks to make it look nice:
Or you go really crazy and mosaic the top!
That looks awesome—but it takes a long time.
And hauling cinder blocks is really a pain in the neck, as is leveling the ground so they don’t go all tumbly-bumbly on you.
And then someone says, “Don’t you know cinder blocks can leach toxins into the soil?”
Wait—what? Do they? Or just alkalinity? Oh, no!
So you say, “Okay, I’m going with cedar next time!”
And you take a trip to the store and discover that buying cedar for your garden beds is roughly equivalent to burning stacks of $100 bills to keep warm.
It’s expensive! And you also need to deal with building the beds.
So the spring gardens wait for you to get around to making your beds. Or maybe you’re waiting on your husband to make them. Or for your brother to lend you his saw.
Meanwhile, if you go with my favorite, easy, raised-bed style, you could have been all planted long ago…
(READ THE REST over at The Grow Network!)
