Raised Garden Planters

Setting Up Your Raised Garden Beds

There are a few key factors to remember when choosing the location for your raised bed garden: be sure to place your garden in an area that gets at least five to six hours of direct sunlight a day; avoid lower areas in your yard where the soil will stay wet for extended periods of time; and if possible, try to select a location close to your hose, as your garden will need to be watered frequently.

To ensure maximum sunlight for all of your plants try placing your garden so the longest side of the bed faces south. Aligning your bed so one of the shorter sides face south will limit the amount of sunlight smaller plants can get.

Not sure how to place your plants? We have a few suggestions:

• Plant taller vegetables along the north side of the garden
• • This will prevent the tallest crop from shading smaller crop.
• Plant medium height vegetables in the center.
• • This will prevent the medium crops from shading the smallest crops, and will also allow it maximum sun exposure.
• Plant shorter vegetables along the southern side of the garden.
• • This ensures even the shortest crop will get the maximum amount of sunlight.

How to Prepare Your Soil

It's important to make sure the foundation of your garden, the soil, is in tip top shape before planting anything. Sometimes soil can be a little too alkaline or too acidic - both are harmful to plants. To avoid this, you need to prepare your soil properly.

When using soil from your yard be sure to test the pH; Wayfair sells kits that help make the process easy. After you have your initial reading, you'll be able to better decide what needs to go into your soil first. If your soil is alkaline, you can add ground limestone, wood ashes, or oyster shell. If your soil is too acidic, you can add common sulfur, ferrous sulfate, or aluminum sulfate.

If you'd rather skip the pH test, combining compost with your soil can give your garden the best nutrients and help naturally balance the soil. Different types of compost provide a more comprehensive type of nutrition than just one product alone. Try mixing and matching a few for the best result in your garden.

Different types of compost:

• Home compost
• Composting cow manure
• Composting chicken manure
• Cotton burr compost
• Mushroom compost
• Seafood compost
• Composted bat guanot
• Vermicomposting (composting with worms)
• Leaf compost (often available from your city)

What to Plant in a Raised Bed Garden

If you prefer a produce garden, you need to consider which types of produce you'd like to plant and what season you would need to start planting.

When you're just starting out it's hard to know which types of produce to plant. There are endless combination options, so make sure your garden inspires you in the kitchen!

If you'd prefer to plant a flower garden, you first need to consider your climate and zone location. Most flowers only survive in certain temperatures, so before selecting your bulbs or plants it's important to know what will flourish in your climate. Here are a few suggestions to get you started:

Advice from the Pros:

Wayfair searched high and low and found the best gardening experts on the Internet. Check out their tips and tricks for starting a garden of your own!

Angela, from Eden Condensed

Advice:

• Read those plant tags! Nursery plants come with tags that have invaluable information about the plant including sun and water needs, how far apart to plant, and how big the plant will get.
• Start small. Try planting flowers in a few colorful pots on a patio or some easy vegetables like lettuce, radishes, or squash in a small raised bed. A small space is easier to maintain, and once you get comfortable with your gardening skills, you can expand.

Favorite Tools:

• Gardening gloves
• Hand trowel
• By-pass pruners
• Pointed head shovel
• Rake
• Hat/sunscreen

Bren from BrenHaas.com

Advice:

• Start your spring garden out naturally by adding as much organic matter to the soil as you can. Practicing composting is an easy way to add organic matter to your home garden or a community garden. Anyone can easily collect their egg shells and coffee grounds from morning breakfast to add to the garden. Egg shells add calcium to the soil, making your organic veggies and herbs extremely happy!
• Having the right tools in good shape for gardening is very important to grow successfully. Keep your tools in top shape by storing them properly. It is very important to clean all tools after you are done using them; each time you use a tool, be sure to wipe any soil off and dry it before storing.

Favorite Tools:

• A pegboard garden tool board
• Countertop composter

Val from Corn, Beans, Pigs, and Kids

Advice:

• Plant what you eat. This seems easy enough, but when making your garden plan remember to plant what you are going to enjoy eating. If you don't like green beans, don't plant green beans.
• Location, location, location. After you have decided what you want to plant in your garden you need to think about the amount of space you'll need for it and where to locate it.

Favorite Tools:

• A home canning set

John from Master of Geen

Advice:

• Ignore most of what you hear from others and just dive right in. Gardening is all about trial and error, and the fun comes in learning along the way and when that first flower emerges on a plant you picked out and stuck in the ground.

Favorite Tools:

• Spade
• Metal rake
• Pruning shears
• Trowel

Kathy from Washington Gardener Magazine

Advice:

• If you don't have outdoor access of your own, look around for public space you can borrow or share. Apply for a plot at a local community garden or partner with a local friend or family member who has more land than time to garden and barter your extra produce for their growing space.
• Also, look at commercial and business spaces. Does your place of work have a rooftop deck they would allow you to put a few planting pots out on? How about your favorite restaurant? They might trade you space for taking care of their planting boxes or for fresh herbs to use in their kitchen.
• With just a bit of planning, you can think outside the backyard raised bed for your growing space and be harvesting and enjoying "home-grown" edibles at your table this fall.

Favorite Tools:

• A sun hat