My garden beds are ground level, and because of age and a bad back, I would
like to build/make higher ones.

It has been suggested to me to make the back wall of the beds out from the
fences in case in the future, the palings needs to come out, then it will
make life easier to work on the fencing.

I intend to make the walls of these beds out of bricks. How far away from
the fences would you suggest to come out.

Thanks for your help
Katherine

On Sat, 28 Mar 2009 10:34:17 +1100, jones wrote:

My garden beds are ground level, and because of age and a bad back, I
would like to build/make higher ones.

How high?
How wide?

We built them three real railway sleepers side on high. Width was the
problem as it was difficult to reach the middle for digging, weeding, etc.

It has been suggested to me to make the back wall of the beds out from
the fences in case in the future, the palings needs to come out, then it
will make life easier to work on the fencing.

I intend to make the walls of these beds out of bricks. How far away
from the fences would you suggest to come out.

Big enough to scrap a hoe down there to clean out spilled soil, snails,
etc. wider if you need access or weeds worry you. Perhaps lawn mower
width?

Thanks for your help
Katherine

On Mar 28, 7:34*am, "jones" wrote:
It has been suggested to me to make the back wall of the beds out from the
fences in case in the future, the palings needs to come out, then it will
make life easier to work on the fencing.

If you can access the bed from both sides then you can effectively
make your bed twice the size for almost the same effort. I suggest
that a reach of 600mm is good and 900mm is probably the maximum. If
you can access the bed from both sides you can make it 1200 to 1800
deep without needing to lay many more bricks. Allow enough room to
move around between the fence and the bed and preferably get a
wheelbarrow through, probably about 800mm or so. Of course, you may
run out of room.

Those corrugated steel raised beds are very smart, and the price has
come down a bit. Probably cheaper than bricks if you are buying the
bricks or paying someone to lay them...

jones wrote:
My garden beds are ground level, and because of age and a bad back, I
would like to build/make higher ones.

It has been suggested to me to make the back wall of the beds out
from the fences in case in the future, the palings needs to come out,
then it will make life easier to work on the fencing.

I intend to make the walls of these beds out of bricks. How far away
from the fences would you suggest to come out.

Thanks for your help
Katherine

If you don't leave access on the fence side the maximum width you can
comfortably lean over from the front is about 600mm so this is the width of
the bed. If you allow access behind the bed you can make them 1200mm wide
which will give you much more area for little more building material. If you
make the back wall close to the fence your bricklayer and future fencers
will be unhappy. Also, assuming you follow normal practice and run the beds
north-south, building close to a paling fence will tend to shade that side.
I suggest coming out from the fence about 900mm so you can get a wheelbarrow
down there.

Consider also making the top of the wall wide enough to sit on, perhaps by
capping it with a wooden seat rather than brickwork.

David

jones wrote:
My garden beds are ground level, and because of age and a bad back, I would
like to build/make higher ones.

It has been suggested to me to make the back wall of the beds out from the
fences in case in the future, the palings needs to come out, then it will
make life easier to work on the fencing.

I intend to make the walls of these beds out of bricks. How far away from
the fences would you suggest to come out.

Thanks for your help
Katherine


*Such* a great idea! My DH has made me four raised garden beds and
garden work is much easier as a result. My beds are made from Bunnings'
sleepers (150mm x 50mm x 1.5m). We made them three sleepers deep (ie
450mm) with an additional 50mm plank placed on top to form a bench seat.
This has turned out to be an excellent feature, as our teenaged
daughter's friends like to have barbecues in the yard and seating is no
problem at all! There's plenty, all along the garden beds!

My beds are each a metre wide, but that's really too wide for comfort.
It's quite difficult to stretch that far across, so I'd recommend no
wider than 600mm (that's my farthest comfortable reach). I have a
mower's width between my beds and that works quite well. We started out
with just two beds hard against the fence, but it didn't take long to
realise I'd need more! Two more are in place and ready to be planted,
and another two will go against the opposite fence (eventually). Poor
DH's aching back... Anyway, I planted alyssum, native violets, parsley
and chamomile around the bottoms of the beds and so far it's working
well to stop grass from uglifying the surrounds.

If you're concerned about your fencing, then I'd be inclined to leave a
comfortable mower's width for access *unless* you used a brick or
masonry wall for the garden's edge and thus had the option of using it
for a fence-foundation later on (ie build a paling or other fence on top
of it). My beds are hard against the (corro) fence, but that's no
problem as our neighbour's land is much higher than ours and butts
against the fence equally on the other side. One day, the old fence will
go and we'll work things out then.

Another thing I've done with my beds was tacking up some old reo for my
tomatoes and beans to climb up. The lower bed will have a climbing rose,
so an extra sheet of reo's coming from the demolition place soon. With
the beds up so high, it was as easy as anything to put in a sprinkler
system. In this way, I can water each bed separately or all of them
together (this doesn't work as well because of water pressure). We had
to block off access to the beds by putting chicken wire around for a
while - we have a bull terrier and she was in doggie heaven with all
that fresh dirt around! She terriered great holes in it and came out
grinning like a mad thing!

Just FYI, it took about eight yards of soil to fill four beds, each
500mm x 1m x 1.5m. We bit the bullet and got a good organic mix and I'm
so glad we did - the drainage has been perfect and weeds barely evident.
I put broken tiles and bricks in the bottoms of the beds (our block is
very boggy in the winter and tends not to drain very well) and this has
worked beautifully when it rains: the drainage is spot-on! I mulched at
first with rotted grass clippings but have since found that straw works
much better. Gotta find a good source of el cheapo straw!

The best result of our new garden beds has been a *huge* increase in the
wildlife that visits our yard. We have numerous kinds of lizards and
frogs and have recently hosted a nervously large black snake (hoping
he's moved on now - haven't seen him in a few days). The frogs have been
funny... we installed the garden pond that DH gave me tiddly-pom years
ago as a wedding anniversary gift. Not *one* frog has been for a bath in
it, yet hordes of the little buggers are pokk-pokk-pokking in a few
bucketsful of cannas and hippeastrums that are waiting to be planted
out. So many, in fact, that I'm reluctant to disturb the froggies by
moving the plants! Y'can't win... =:-0

Oh! One last thing! Bunnings carries a very inexpensive range of
long-handled tools. They're only about $5 each and you can get a trowel,
a fork and a cultivator. These have been perfect for reaching across my
garden beds, but be warned: you do get what you pay for and the tools
aren't terribly strong. Treated with a little care, though, they've been
fine for my purposes.

HTH,

--
Trish Brown {|:-}

Newcastle, NSW, Australia

jones wrote:
My garden beds are ground level, and because of age and a bad back, I would
like to build/make higher ones.

It has been suggested to me to make the back wall of the beds out from the
fences in case in the future, the palings needs to come out, then it will
make life easier to work on the fencing.

I intend to make the walls of these beds out of bricks. How far away from
the fences would you suggest to come out.

Thanks for your help
Katherine


I've got two - one with the walls made from scrap timber and one from
sheets of colorbond left over from recladding the shed. The timber one
was made by my housesitter while I was working overseas for a couple of
years; he was taller than I am & had longer arms, so it's a bit wide
and I have trouble getting to the middle of it. It does help having
access from all four sides. The colourbond one is almost chest height
and is great to work on. Leave enough space between the beds and the
fence to get a wheelbarrrow/mower in.

--
Anne Chambers
South Australia

anne dot chambers at bigpond dot com

On Sat, 28 Mar 2009 18:52:35 +1100, Trish Brown wrote:


*Such* a great idea! My DH has made me four raised garden beds and
garden work is much easier as a result. My beds are made from Bunnings'
sleepers (150mm x 50mm x 1.5m).

Termites about? The first bed we raised was with those sawn sleepers from
a similar place. Didn't last five years. The wall acquired this bow way
beyond warpage. Little buggers had eaten the entire centre out and left a
thin surface.

Replaced them with genuine railway sleeper and have had ten years life so
far.

g'day katherine,

yes we have to go that way sometime, but buy and large our gardening
does not take a lot of stooping only at times of planting, and
replenishing mulch etc.,. these chores happen a couple or so times a
year is all.

how far from the fence enough that you can get tdown there
comfortably, say about 1/2 a meter don't reckon you would have to go
the full meter. remember some plants will overhang so you need to be
able to get around them without breaking them.

using brick is not going to be any picnic either (then you need good
footings so brick will remain upright) on the old back either but!
have you considered corrugated roofing as edging it is about 2' wide,
and using galvanised fence star pickets will be long lasting and easy
to errect.

up our way (not sure where you are?) there are people who make pre-fab
bed surrounds in one piece out of corrugated, very neat and free
standing, not real cheap but hey are very easy to instal just pick a
spot and start filling them.

keep the beds no more than say 3' wide and 5 or 6 meters long is
heaps.

also check our pic's there may be some extra tips there for you as
well.

http://www.lensgarden.com.au/

a couple other links:

http://www.easy-garden-tips.com/buil...le-garden.html

http://www.noble.org/Ag/Horticulture...ated_beds.html

i was looking for the makers of teh bed frames maybe you could do a
google at elast you would see how they look.



On Sat, 28 Mar 2009 10:34:17 +1100, "jones" wrote:
snipped
With peace and brightest of blessings,

len & bev

--
"Be Content With What You Have And
May You Find Serenity and Tranquillity In
A World That You May Not Understand."

http://www.lensgarden.com.au/

Thank you all for your suggestions - all good as usual.

I have the bricks already as next door was moving out and we asked for the
bricks, that would have gone to the tip anyway.

We don't have lawn/grass, just concrete flag stones in the back yard, so
mowing is not a problem.

Thanks again
Katherine


My garden beds are ground level, and because of age and a bad back, I
would like to build/make higher ones.

It has been suggested to me to make the back wall of the beds out from
the fences in case in the future, the palings needs to come out, then it
will make life easier to work on the fencing.

I intend to make the walls of these beds out of bricks. How far away from
the fences would you suggest to come out.

Thanks for your help
Katherine


*Such* a great idea! My DH has made me four raised garden beds and garden
work is much easier as a result. My beds are made from Bunnings' sleepers
(150mm x 50mm x 1.5m). We made them three sleepers deep (ie 450mm) with an
additional 50mm plank placed on top to form a bench seat. This has turned
out to be an excellent feature, as our teenaged daughter's friends like to
have barbecues in the yard and seating is no problem at all! There's
plenty, all along the garden beds!