Browse Forums Landscape & Garden Design 1 Jul 11, 2011 12:58 pm Hi there, Soon I will be building some raised garden beds for my vegie growing in my backyard. I plan on using chunky redgum sleepers (not the railway ones) that are 200mm wide, 75mm thick and 2.4 long. There will be 6 garden beds in total, with the dimensions of each bed being roughly 2.4m x 1.2m. That will work out well since I can cut the sleepers in half to get the 1.2m pieces. The beds will be 60cm in height (i.e. 3 sleepers high), which should make it a “back-friendly” vegie garden bed. Now, I’m wondering how to secure and support the walls of these garden beds. I originally thought about using posts in each corner, and then bolting each sleeper into that post. That seems OK, but there will be lots of bolts and the posts will also take up some of the valuable space. A friend of my recommended an alternative to this. He suggested drilling a hole through each sleeper (at each corner of the garden bed), and then hammering in a metal rod that passes through all 3 sleepers, and into the ground. Also, he suggested that the sleepers be stacked such that they overlap each other at the corner, i.e. in a brick pattern, so that the single metal rod in each corner helps to support 2 sides of the garden bed, rather than just one. How does that sound? I like the idea, but I’m just wondering whether I would also need some internal bracing, since a 2.4m stretch of garden bed might mean lots of pressure on the sides from the soil and water – and I wouldn’t want the bed to bow out of shape. Also, what sort of metal rods can I use? I think galvanised would be best, but not sure where to get them from. Cheers! Pete Re: Questions about building raised garden beds 2Jul 11, 2011 1:09 pm The weight of the sleepers will provide a fair bit of the retaining wall effect so bowing shouldn't be a problem. Galvanised would be good but if you get 10mm mild steel the wood will probably rot before the steel is rusted away. The Harder You Try - the Luckier You Get ! Web site http://www.anewhouse.com.au Informative, Amusing, and Opinionated Blog - Over 600 posts on all aspects of building a new house. Re: Questions about building raised garden beds 3Jul 11, 2011 1:17 pm Hi again, Anyone know of a good place to buy metal rods (around Melbourne)? I've only seen the "all thread" in Bunnings. How about if I use reo rods? On eBay, I've found these redgum sleepers... cheapest I've come across so far... $25 a piece... http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Red-gum-sleepers-200-75-retaining-walls-redgum-post-2-4-/330584207472?pt=AU_Building_Materials&hash=item4cf85ab070 Cheers, Pete Re: Questions about building raised garden beds 4Jul 11, 2011 1:22 pm Reo rods would be fine. The Harder You Try - the Luckier You Get ! Web site http://www.anewhouse.com.au Informative, Amusing, and Opinionated Blog - Over 600 posts on all aspects of building a new house. Re: Questions about building raised garden beds 5Jul 11, 2011 2:30 pm pete_melb Hi again, Anyone know of a good place to buy metal rods (around Melbourne)? I've only seen the "all thread" in Bunnings. How about if I use reo rods? On eBay, I've found these redgum sleepers... cheapest I've come across so far... $25 a piece... http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Red-gum-sleepers-200-75-retaining-walls-redgum-post-2-4-/330584207472?pt=AU_Building_Materials&hash=item4cf85ab070 Cheers, Pete I bought all my timber (Pine and Merbau) and bits n pieces to build my deck from Love's Timber. Very good person to deal with and very good products. I managed to get 20 (2.7*200*75) red gum sleepers for $500 delivered from an ebay seller about 12 months ago. I will see if I can find his card as I no longer see him on ebay. He's located in Hallam I think. However I think $25 for what your after now is pretty good. Their over $30 from Bunnings/Mitre 10. Built The Huntley 290 with HomeXcellance / Cheviot Homes Re: Questions about building raised garden beds 6Jul 12, 2011 9:12 am Hi there, I'm still trying to decide on whether to go for redgum or cypress sleepers. They're roughly the same price, but I'm not quite sure whether cypress is as resistant to water/moisture as redgum. I want the garden beds to last a long time. I spoke to a guy who sells redgum sleepers, and his opinion is that drilling through redgum (i.e. a hole 20mm in diameter and 200mm deep, on each end of each sleeper) would not be very easy, would be time consuming, and would wear out many drill bits. Never tried drilling into redgum before, so I guess it's something to be aware of. As an alternative, he said he could make up some steel L-shaped posts (L--shaped when looking down on the post, from above), that would span the height of the raised bed (600mm). The idea would be to bolt each sleeper into this steel post. Since it's L-shaped, it would hold both sides of each corner together. Sounds OK I guess. I still prefer the first option of drilling through the sleepers are hammering a reo rod into each corner. I'd prefer not to have any steel posts and bolts viisble, if at all possible. Does drilling a 200mm deep hole into redgum sound realistic? If not, would drilling the same hole into cypress be much easier? Cheers, Pete Re: Questions about building raised garden beds 7Jul 12, 2011 10:44 am Hi Pete I'm not much help answering your questions but I have seen a company online called naturalyards that make vege beds in a similar fashion to what you are proposing. You might like to take a look. Re: Questions about building raised garden beds 8Jul 12, 2011 4:44 pm I wouldn't be drilling 20mm 12mm for a 10m rod shouldn't be too hard The Harder You Try - the Luckier You Get ! Web site http://www.anewhouse.com.au Informative, Amusing, and Opinionated Blog - Over 600 posts on all aspects of building a new house. Re: Questions about building raised garden beds 9Jul 20, 2011 2:30 am I would be finding the raised veggie bed thread. Do them as raised wicking beds only. There is good instruction in the veggie thread. You will make growing them as cheap and easy as it almost gets. Re: Questions about building raised garden beds 10Aug 08, 2011 9:22 am Hi all, Thanks a lot for your input. In the end, I chose to go for ACQ-treated pine. I went to see the Ecowood products in Bayswater and their garden beds looked pretty good and seemed strong enough for my needs (BTW, this is different to the Ecowood product from Bunnings, which I believe is CCA-treated pine). They sell the garden beds as kits (pre-cut sleepers, and batten screws), so I ended up buying 6 of them. Instead of sleepers in height, I ordered material to make them 3 sleepers in height (600mm). I've gradually been assembling these garden beds. Marking the hole positions, drilling the pilot holes and driving the batten screws is quite time consuming. So far, I've put 3 of them together. My brothers came over on Saturday, so we managed to move them into position and level them out. Hopefully, within the next week or two, I'll finish the remaining 3 beds, and get them into their final positions. Once that's all done, it will be decision time... whether to just fill them with soil to create classic garden beds, or take the plunge and turn them into wicking beds. I really like that idea, and I did watch the Costa’s Garden Odyssey episode where he showed how it’s done. I like the way Lonnie’s wicking beds turned out (in the other thread). Just wondering... my garden beds will be essentially made up of 6 separate “planter boxes”. Four of them will be butted up against each other (end-to-end), and the other two will also be butted up against each other in the same wat. There will be a 70cm gap (i.e. walking path) between these 2 stretches of garden beds. If I end up doing them as wicking beds, should I set up each of the 6 beds as 6 totally independent wicking beds? Or should I set them up as 2 groups, i.e. I would end up with 2 wicking beds (one made up of 4 garden beds, and the other made up of 2 garden beds)? I think I’d have less troubles if I set them up as 6 separate wicking beds. I’ll take some photos this week, and post them here so you can see how things are going. Fu, regarding the raised wicking beds, is this the thread you mentioned? http://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=38476 Thanks again! Cheers, Pete Re: Questions about building raised garden beds 11Aug 08, 2011 9:09 pm Yeah that's just one but since then I've met up with some amazing people through my network of peeps. The consensus is to just fill with soil and have the drainage point and the same fill pipe. The use of the geotextile, gravel etc is not considered to be all that necessary according to the crew I've been chatting with. None the less it offers the 2nd most water efficient means of irrigating vegetable crops. Water is going to get more and more expensive as the years go on and if at all possible, plan and prepare now while you are building your home. Not doing that would be foolish for the health of your future budget will suffer There is another thread around with a stack of links also. Re: Questions about building raised garden beds 12Aug 09, 2011 8:20 am Hi Fu, Yeah, I've been wondering about what would be the best material to use for filling the "reservoir" part of the wicking bed. So, based on your discussions with those who use only soil, does that mean you could end up with, for example, a full soil depth of 600mm? That is, 300mm for the reservoir, and 300mm for the growing area? In the reservoir, how do they keep the soil from blocking the agi pipe? Would the soil in the reservoir be a sandy type, or rich in organic matter? Do you have any links to this type of wicking bed? Thanks! Pete Re: Questions about building raised garden beds 13Aug 09, 2011 9:01 am HI again, Would this be an example of what you were thinking? Fully Wick Mate – Wicking Beds Explained http://www.sgaonline.org.au/?p=3526 In that type of wicking bed, the reservoir is actually made of of 2 materials - the bottom half is gravel/scoria, and the top half is soil. Cheers, Pete Questions about building raised garden beds 14Aug 09, 2011 1:07 pm I posted a stack of links somewhere on it. No time to find them for you though. Re: Questions about building raised garden beds 15Aug 09, 2011 11:00 pm Fu, would you be OK using something like expanded perlite/vermiculite or a mix of both (ala hydroponics) as the media for the water reservoir rather than blue metal? I'm just looking into it now for my raised garden beds Re: Questions about building raised garden beds 16Aug 10, 2011 4:07 pm Hi there, I found this (very recent) article by Colin Austin in which he discusses the use of rocks vs. organic material, etc. http://www.waterright.com.au/stones-v-organics.pdf He definitely suggests using organic material (which along the lines of what Fu was saying). Here is an excerpt: “Many people have seen my very simple single chamber system and tried to convert it back to the much more complex two chamber system by filling the bottom half with stones which are then covered with a geotextile fabric.” “After a time the soil will still get through the geotextile fabric to fill all the holes between the stones which then turns into a form of concrete. The only advantage I can see for this system is that you will get much slimmer from the large amount of energy used to dig out this concrete.” Cheers, Pete Re: Questions about building raised garden beds 17Aug 10, 2011 5:10 pm pete_melb Hi there, I found this (very recent) article by Colin Austin in which he discusses the use of rocks vs. organic material, etc. http://www.waterright.com.au/stones-v-organics.pdf He definitely suggests using organic material (which along the lines of what Fu was saying). Here is an excerpt: “Many people have seen my very simple single chamber system and tried to convert it back to the much more complex two chamber system by filling the bottom half with stones which are then covered with a geotextile fabric.” “After a time the soil will still get through the geotextile fabric to fill all the holes between the stones which then turns into a form of concrete. The only advantage I can see for this system is that you will get much slimmer from the large amount of energy used to dig out this concrete.” Cheers, Pete I read that, but I'm not so keen on using soil that will be constantly wet - personal preference. Re: Questions about building raised garden beds 18Aug 11, 2011 10:17 am I have the same concerns about soil (in the reservoir area) being constantly "waterlogged". Some people say they allow the wicking bed to "dry out" before filling it up again, which gives the soil a chance to breathe in between refills. Re: Questions about building raised garden beds 19Aug 12, 2011 8:12 am Here are Colin Austin's thoughts about using organic material as the wicking medium / reservoir... "You do not want to have the organic material saturated all the time. Just fill them up and leave until the water has been used so the organic materials cycle from wet to dry. Convincing people not to over water is one of my big problems. The other is making the beds too deep, in that case the water will not be sucked out so you will always have a wet zone at the base which never dries out. 60mm is the maximum you want to go to using a closed bed used for veggies etc." Re: Questions about building raised garden beds 20Aug 12, 2011 11:43 am Does anyone else NOT like that they have suggested shade cloth. Have you guys seen that stuff break down over the years. Use a natural fabric and it will still break down but it wont leach anything into the soil (hemp/un colored cotton??) The beds will have to be pulled down every now and then anyways, so every few years you can replace it. You should check your detail drawings, it may show downpipe within brick pier. 14 8551 Hi Suku18 In NSW the statutory required insurances are: 1. HBCF ( Home Building Compensation Fund) - This is if the builder dies or goes broke. But this only covers 20%… 1 1278 Personally, considering your layout (study/work desks in bedrooms), I don't think you have any other option but to leave NW windows and make them as big as possible e.g.… 7 7853 |