Raised bed gardens are one of the best choices for gardening in many places. They can be used not only for vegetable gardening, but flower gardening as well and other specialty gardening like growing strawberries. We take a look at the advantages of raised bed gardening and include some videos on building raised beds

One type of popular raised bed gardening is Square Foot Gardening. which lays the beds out in squares and guides you on the exact planting spacing.

Aesthetic appeal: Anyone who's gardened for a while knows that at some point your garden can start to look a little unruly. By clearly defining the garden bed, with clearly defined pathways, you have a much easier job of keeping the garden looking neat and clean. Even better, by keeping the foot traffic out of the growing area, you keep the soil loose and aerated, just what the plants in your garden want.

Weeds: First, you can do a much better job of keeping local grasses out of the garden. For some of the aggressive Southern grasses like St. Augustine and Bermuda grass this can be a real issue, as they spread with runners that can jump many barriers, and simply hoeing doesn't do the job.

Watering: One of the big advantages of raised bed gardening is the ability to direct your irrigation just where it's needed, and not waste a lot of your water in the walkways between beds. Furthermore, you can more easily manage the drainage of a raised bed, and aren't bothered by low spots and puddling nearly as much. In addition, if you decide you want to add an irrigation system, that is much easier in raised beds as well. You can also shape the bed slightly to improve either the runoff or the retention of water.

Access: For gardeners who have some limited mobility and can't bend to garden in a traditional garden, or maybe even confined to a wheelchair, a raised be garden might be the only real way for them to have enough access to garden.

Soil quality: Your soil can be amended or replaced completely in these beds, so you can eliminate soil borne diseases and improve the ability to hold an appropriate amount of moisture.

There are few disadvantages to raised bed garden kits. You can't really use a full sized tiller easily in one of these beds. You need to be careful in the selection of the materials for the walls, you want something that will last like cedar, but generally it is not advisable to use pressure treated lumber as it can have some pretty toxic chemicals acting as the preservative.

The videos describe the plannning and construction of a raised garden bed quite thoroughly.

Some basic concepts covered: Placement ideas, including getting an adequate amount of sun, and avoiding locations given to frost.

Construction materials for the bed, including the type of wood if you choose to use wooden walls, although you can use cinder blocks or other materials as well. Sizing the bed for easy access is discussed. Included are suggestions for brackets that hold the garden walls in place. One cost effective way to build these beds is to use plastic forms that look like timber. They are not very expensive but last much longer than many types of lumber.

Another way to save money is to simply use your own lumber but to buy raised bed corners to finish it off, as most of the work in building a raised bed is in the assembly of the corners.

Soil mixture that works well for your garden that build on the advantages of your bed. Go heavy on the organic components like compost. You may want to consider a special mix that doesn't use a lot of soil. One popular choice is to use 1/3 peat, 1/3 vermiculite, and 1/3 compost, which gives a soil that retains moisture well,

When planting time has come, the way you plant is a little different. Spacings between the plants can be quite a bit closer than the traditional spacings, which is good because it gives great yields of all those vegetables you are working so hard to grow. This means it works especially well for growing radishes, lettuce, and other crops that are so small that traditional rows waste space.