Grow Your Own Magazine

I am thinking of making an area of raised beds on my allotment to grow salad items and herbs etc and was considering using old scaffold boards or wood to make the frame and sides, is this a good idea?

Should I treat the inside of the wood with something to stop it rotting, or should I just leave them and fill with earth?

Also on a side note, if I may also ask? What is the best type of soil to fill the raised beds with if I intend to grow things like rocket, spinach, thyme, tomatoes, spring onion (scallion), callaloo etc?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks.

Sure is, I've done the same myself, but with packing case planks (fully treated).

Can't you just transfer soil from other parts of the allotment, eg. where you're going to run paths between beds?

Some allotments have rules against importing soil, I think??

I used scaffold planks and being untreated should last for at least ten years. You can always tack thick black polythene to the inside.

Try and transfer soil form other part of the plot like thingybobby says. I ordered one and a half ton of top soil from a local guy that said it was screened and had no weeds, six weeks later they are full of weeds which i have now got under control. Its better to let them fill up over the next couple of years with compost and green manures.

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good Diggin, Chuffa.

Thanks Thingybobby and Chuffa, I was beginning to think that nobody had the answer to my problem!

I have renewed enthusiasm for this project now and will get on the look out for some suitable wood to build them and will take your advice on filling from other areas on the allotment. I have inherited 3 compost heaps, so will hopefully have lots of other matter to top them up with too. Great pictures Chuffa, I am impressed with your handiwork!

I had a bit of a hare-brained plan to fix strips of copper to the top edge of the wood to stop any slugs and snails venturing over and eating my green stuff, but was dismayed to learn (on this site) that the little critters come up through the soil... would this therefore be a complete waste of time or help a little with keeping the numbers down? Maybe some beer traps (something else I learnt to do here!) in the raised beds would sweetly kill off those that defeated the copper?!

I used treated gravel boards to do my raised beds. Am gradually filling the whole of one plot with them.

I have dug in compost and sand, dependant on how the existing soil is.

My plots had not been used for a decade or so and I found that I would dig in one spot and it was heavy clay but then 6 foot away it was lovely crumbly soil.

My cunning plan is that as I've got arthritis, if I do these beds now, then in years to come things should be easier for me as my joints get worse.

Cunning plan Stacey Steve!

My partner and I spent 3 hours clearing our new allotment this evening and although it was hard work, I was rewarded with about 12 scaffold boards found under some long grass! So pleased as I can use them for my raised beds... Nearly there, just to level the ground a bit tomorrow and start filling!

Copper is great to stop these critters entering, a good product is Nemaslug and it releases nematodes that feed on the young snails and slugs. It works but is exspensive and you have to water these in every six weeks.

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good Diggin, Chuffa.