If you’re looking to put a small garden into your yard or near your house to grow veggies and fruits or different types of flowers, it’s worth considering a raised bed.
Raised garden beds and planters can solve a number problems. They make marking the space between your lawn and garden very simple, and make plowing up the soil unnecessary. You can build them high off the ground to save your knees or back.
They improve drainage, too. If your soil is sandy or mostly heavy clay, raised beds, which are filled with exactly the soil mixture you want, make planting a breeze. Raised beds also warm up faster than garden beds, which is ideal if you live in a cold climate and want to maximize your number of growing days per year. And bonus: They are easy to fence in, keeping your precious plants away from hungry garden visitor such as rabbits!
There are tons of raised bed garden kits you can purchase and assemble yourself. But many designs can be DIY’ed for less using up-cycled or repurposed materials or even with basic lumber from the hardware store. And a DIY design lets you make it as simple or complex as you like, ready to fit in better in your particular yard.
If you don’t have room for traditional raised beds in your yard, there are many variations of the idea that work for compact spaces such as a petite patio, deck, or balcony. Vertical growing towers, window boxes, and wall planters also provide planting space for you to grow anything from lettuce and herbs to violas and petunias.
We’ve rounded up a few simple raised bed garden ideas that don’t require a degree in engineering to create. With some basic tools and a weekend afternoon or two, you can create these raised bed gardens for your own back yard. You can follow the tutorials or let them inspire your own designs.
Ahead, our favorite raised bed garden ideas that are pretty and practical for any garden space: