15 DIY Raised Garden Bed Ideas For A Great Start This Spring

Now that spring is practically here already it’s time to make our homes and garden look fresh and rejuvenated so how about we start with by checking out a few tutorials on how to build your own raised garden beds? If you haven’t done anything similar before you’ll see that this actually a fairly simple DIY project with lots of customization options. The best way to learn anything is through examples so let’s just jump into it.

Garden with raised beds

Raised garden beds are very practical for organizing plants as well as because they facilitate planting and harvesting. Building them is actually not that difficult. The planning part is the most important one because that’s when you decide how you’re going to organize and build everything. You have to think long term.

Garden with raised beds

A DIY raised planter box like the one you see here is easy to build, even if you do it all from scratch. Make sure the frame is strong and sturdy. Putting this thing together is actually pretty fun once all the planning and cutting is done. Raised planter boxes are basically green tables and you can move them around which is great if you like to reorganize your garden often. Also, it’s nice that you can stand when planting and caring for your plants and that’s a big plus.

Garden with raised beds

Whether you want to start a vegetable garden, to plant herbs, flowers or small succulents, raised garden beds can make it all easy and enjoyable. You can use all sorts of materials for the frame. Hardwood works well although metal sheets can also be an option if you prefer that look in particular. Check out sawsonskates to find out how to plan and build everything step by step.

Garden with raised beds

If you want to be fancy you can complicate your DIY garden bed design just a little bit and add some small shelves on each side so you can place more potted plants on them or just them as bench seats. Either way, this won’t require much additional work from your part and the cost difference is minimal. If you want to know more about this project you can find the details on bonnieplants.

Garden with raised beds

You can also give your raised garden beds pest gates. They form a sort of small fence around the plants and help to keep out critters and to protect your plants. They can however get in the way and that problem can be easily solved with removable pest gates. The project is easy to intermediate in terms of difficulty, depending on how familiar you are with this sort of DIY project and wood cutting in general. You can find all the details of the project on vegetablegardener.

Garden with raised beds

Most DIY raised garden beds are simple wooden boxes with a mesh bottom so unless you want to change the shape or to add extra features this should be a pretty basic and straight-forward project. You can find yet another step-by-step tutorial regarding this on woodblogger. Feel free to adjust the proportions and to pick your favorited wood stain or paint color. Just make sure it’s outdoor-ready.

Garden with raised beds

Building a raised garden bed from scratch is also a fairly inexpensive project, especially if you know where and how to save money along the way. Check out thecapecoop to find out how to complete the project with less than $30. You can save a bit by using pine wood which is less expansive than cedar. Reclaimed wood can also work if you can find boards still in good condition or with a nice patina.

Garden with raised beds

If you want to use your raised garden beds to plant herbs, perhaps you’d like a tiered setup like the one featured on decorandthedog. It’s a cute way of organizing the plants plus it’s also a practical setup, ideal for garden corners. You can even take your herb garden indoors when the weather is less than friendly.

Garden with raised beds

Remember when we mentioned raised garden beds can also be built using metal sheets. Well, here’s a tutorial that you one of the options in this particular case. The advantages of using metal instead of wood include the reduced cost and overall flexibility which also means that you can give your garden beds any shape you want (if you’re using roofing metal metal at least). Check out instructables for details if you’re interested.

Garden with raised beds

Apart from wooden boards and sheet metal, there are plenty of other less conventional materials which can be used when building raised garden beds. A particularly cool example comes from getbusygardening. These garden beds were built using concrete blocks. If you like the look, making something similar is super easy. For the frame, all you have to do is line up the blocks in any shape you want. You can fill the holes with soil and turn them into mini planters.

Garden with raised beds

Since we’re talking about unusual materials, check out this cool raised garden bed made out of an old tire. What a great way to recycle tires and to turn them into something that’s not just practical but also very cool-looking. If you want to you can also spray paint the exterior to make the garden beds more colorful. Find out how the transformation is done in the tutorial featured on instructables.

Garden with raised beds

If you want to make things easier for you, instead of building your raised garden beds from scratch you can repurpose a water trough (or several) and make simple modifications to them which only take a few minutes. You can play mix and match several such containers based on what you want to plant and how you want to organize your garden. The idea comes from cynthiaweber.

Garden with raised beds

Another idea is to use stone to build a raised garden bed that’s not just extra durable but also good-looking and timeless. You can arrange the stones to form any shape you want and you can even reposition them in case you want to expand your garden at one point. If you like this idea and you’re interested in more details, you can check out petscribbles.

Garden with raised beds

If you like the idea of a wooden garden bed but not so much the prospect of using boards to build a rectangular frame, perhaps you’d prefer instead to use a bunch of small tree trunk sections to build a sort of cute little fence around your plants. The idea comes from cheapseeds and we think it’s absolutely charming in more ways than one.

Garden with raised beds

The last inspiring DIY garden bed idea comes from norrfrid. This time the garden bed featured here looks a lot like a bird’s nest which makes it look super cute and charming. You can make something similar for your own garden and you can adjust the proportions based on how much space you have or your garden needs.