Affordable DIY Garden Beds

In this post I am sharing tips from what we are learning by building our own affordable DIY garden beds. Join me on this journey as we create our from-scratch vegetable garden as a family!

affordable diy garden beds

So many of you have shown interest in watching as we build our DIY garden space. I love that you are on this journey with us! We are not experts, but have discovered a real passion for nurturing our own little patch of earth. Since the kids were really tiny we have always planted a garden in some shape or form. Sometimes its been in small pots, sometimes in the ground, sometimes in a single raised bed.

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Starting from scratch

Now that we have built our long-term home, we want to really create a garden that the kids can enjoy. My husband has put up with my every hope and dream for this patch of earth! He has agreed to build raised beds and a place that I can retreat to for peace. The garden is a true sanctuary for me. More than ever I have found that the garden is a place I can really think through things. There is such contentment and security. I love the quiet, the sounds of the birds, frogs and crickets. I love the sound of the water and the warm golden light! Most of all, though, I love watching the wonder of my children! They run out to the garden each and every morning, eager to check its progress.

Affordable DIY Garden Beds

I am learning that as I age I have discovered a true curiosity for learning about plants. Self reliance, sustainability, nurturing seeds and harvesting produce from our own yard is fascinating to me. There is such a sense of pride when you harvest what you’ve grown. Being the daughter of a farmer, this fact should come as no surprise.

I really find a lot of joy in canning and preserving said produce to enjoy all winter long. It brings a feeling of providing for my people! I like not having to depend on a store for fresh, vitamin-filled produce.

Last year I decided to plant some seed starts to test success verses sowing right into the garden beds. This was fun to try, but I found that I had more success just with sowing seed in garden beds. It worked fine, and like I said, it was so fun to watch the plants each day! But they grew super fast and the stems became “leggy”. This makes them weak because they become heavy and break or thin and weak at the bottom of the stems.

I think this might be different for everyone but I will continue to plant by the seed-in-bed process!

Adding in fruit

This year I am really interested in establishing some fruit in the garden as well. We will be adding a bed of strawberries and a row of raspberry bushes. Maybe a few fruit trees later this fall.

I have recently learned about “raspberry shortcake” varieties which are smaller, thornless bushes that produce lots of raspberries!

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Well, as you can see I could talk about my love for gardening all day. But I know why you’re here! To learn about what we did for raised garden beds. Let’s go over the details, so you can see if this plan fits into your gardening and budget needs!

3 years ago for Mother’s Day/my birthday my husband surprised me with my very first 2 beautiful cedar garden beds. He hid them from me and brought them into the garage on Sunday morning. I could hardly contain my excitement for starting our very own garden. Little did I know how much joy I would discover as my dreams for a bigger garden grew and grew.

affordable diy garden beds

I want to show you a progress picture even though our garden is not yet finished. Progress gives me great hope and a vision for what a space can become with a lot of hard work! Did you know your dreams can really come true? THEY CAN! But let me tell you, you have to be willing to work for them!

One of the hard things about our garden space is that we have crazy growing weeds where we live. They are thick and tall and hard to get rid of. Last fall we cleared the space for the greenhouse to go up, and this spring we rented a skid steer to level out the soil for the beds.

I knew I wanted more garden beds but it would be expensive to build them all in cedar wood. If you are doing a smaller garden, I would recommend investing in cedar. Let me share a little more about what we did since I needed 8 more beds built!

We did not add any paint or stain to our first set of beds, as you can see in the garden image above they have naturally sun bleached and I like them that way. I didn’t want to worry about anything getting into the soil and veggies so I left them raw.

Affordable DIY Raised Garden Beds

Since I knew I was going to need 4 beds on each side of the greenhouse, we checked into a more affordable option than cedar or vinyl. As much as I would’ve loved to use one of those materials, it just wasn’t in the budget to do so and the beds we made will last 10+ years which will give me plenty of time to save for another set down the road.

Here’s what we did for the 8 beds on either side of the greenhouse (the two in the center behind the greenhouse are the original two he built me years ago for Mother’s Day. I would never get rid of them so in those I will plant something special like roses or strawberries).

Our Affordable diy raised garden beds:

When we orginally built our first 4 beds 2 years ago, it cost me about $225 for 4 beds (including hardware). This ends up being about $56 per bed and for a 10+ year investment I felt really great about that! I got a bid for one Vinyl bed that size and it was going to be around $1200.00 yikes!

This year when we purchased lumber for the last 4 boxes, it was unfortunately more than last time because lumber costs have absolutely sky-rocketed with Covid-19. Hopefully before too long that won’t be the case anymore! Even so, I still feel really good about these beds for a more affordable option than vinyl. I am so happy with how they turned out, and it really didn’t take my husband long at all to build them!

affordable diy garden beds

Here is what you’ll need for one fir bed like mine:

Materials for an affordable DIY raised garden bed:

Two 2×12 fir boards 8 foot in length (cut to 90 inches for long sides of box)
One 2×12 fir board 10 foot in length (cut down to 54 inches for two short ends)

Here is the hardware we purchased from Home Depot for the inside of the beds (click for details):

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Tips for building your garden box:

Typically in 2×12’s you will see a crack in the ends. My husband specifically trimmed a few inches off of the ends off of these to rid them of any imperfections or cracks and get to solid wood again for building the actual box.
Pay attention to where your knots are in the boards because you wont want to try and screw a steel fastener into a knot or weak spot.
Always pay attention when selecting your boards to watch for bows, crowns, curve or knots. Just take a moment to get the straightest board you can!
2×12 can be a bit large and challenging to cut with a circular saw, so be extra careful and have someone who is experienced with these tools make the cuts if possible!
Tack the corners together with a finish nail gun to temporarily hold the box together for you as you’re working on the steel fasteners and getting the screws in. It just helps keep everything in place.
You can weather treat the wood if you’d like to help prevent rot or help with the water warping them. I did not do this to mine and they have done awesome for 2 years. The wood will loosen slightly with water, but in a few years you can go back and add in a screw if needed to tighten them up again.
Why can’t I just add 3 screws to the ends of the boxes instead of the fasteners? Good question! We did this to prevent the boards from splitting, using screws on the ends will increase your chance of this happening. these steel fasteners work awesome, they are galvanized and you can hide them where they won’t be seen!

The finishing touch

I would highly recommend getting a quality weed barrier for the bottom of your bed. This makes 100% difference! I love having very minimal weeds come up in my veggie beds. It makes gardening so fun, the kids can help and it never feels like a chore or overwhelming like it did when I had an in-ground garden.

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