Raised Beds, Troughs & Garden Rings

A raised bed should be tall enough to accommodate the full root ball of whatever plants you're growing. The minimum raised beds height I ever recommend is 15cms, but our metal raised beds are 30cms which means both that larger plants, such as soft fruit, can be grown in them and makes them a much more convenient height to work at.

The main consideration when planning raided beds is access. You should be able to get at the bed from each side to plant, weed and harvest. Beds that are 40-60cms wide can comfortably be worked from each side. A height of between 30 and 50cms minimises bending and stretching. Length depends entirely in the space available; we supply raised metal beds from 75cms in length to 2.50m.

The most inexpensive way to fill a raised garden bed is to use sand, gravel or stones on the bottom 10cms of a 30cm raised bed and cover with bulk-bought topsoil and homemade compost. At the end of each season I top up the bed with 5-10cms of good quality compost to add nutrients that have been exhausted during the growing season; there is no need to empty the raised bed or to dig it.

It is possible to fill a raised bed with just compost; however it is expensive, unless it is home-made, and is not recommended. Compost does have good levels of organic matter but the soil in a raised bed should be a blend of topsoil and compost with added grit to aid drainage.

The joy of raised beds is that you can grow almost anything in them. My favourite vegetables include: broad beans and peas (grown inside our 2-hook broad bean supports) and runner beans (grown up a square obelisk), strawberries (so convenient to find and pick them in a 30cm bed), tomatoes and cucumbers, lettuce and herbs (I use fleece to cover these crops for an early picking). Many of the cutting flowers thrive in raised beds: dahlias, lilies, alstroemerias and marigolds are grown in blocks in my raised beds for cutting throughout the summer and autumn.