“To build wood-framed beds, or not to build wood-framed beds?” That seems to be the question many gardeners have on their minds right now. There are pros and cons to both gardening system and I’ll be discussing them here. Both bed types are technically “raised” beds, so to start, I want to explain how I define the two different growing systems:
Mounded Bed Gardens: A mounded bed is a garden bed that is raised slightly (4–8 in.) above the surrounding area but isn’t bordered by a wooden frame. You can put a mounded bed garden in just about any spot in your yard that has enough sunlight and soil. You create it by loosening and lifting the existing soil and adding new soil and compost to improve its structure.
Wood-Framed Gardens: A wood-framed garden is similar to a mounded bed garden, but it’s contained in a large wooden frame (hence the name). The frame can be made of almost any type and size of lumber and can stand anywhere from a few inches (we recommend at least 12”) to a few feet tall. Square or rectangular shapes are relatively simple to build and are the preferred structure for many home gardeners.*
*If you look around at the gardens we’ve designed and built, you’ll see that there are other materials such as metal and stone, that work well as a building medium for framed gardens. For the sake of keeping things simple, we’ll just call them all wood-framed beds for now.
Advantages of mounded beds:
• They’re simple. You can easily build a few mounded raised beds in a day, and you don’t have to worry about gathering up a lot of extra materials to get started.
• They’re cheap. All you have to buy is soil, compost, and organic fertilizers.
• They fit easily into existing landscaping. Most ornamental landscaping beds are mounded raised beds, so if one of these exists in your ideal garden site already, all you have to do is pull out the unwanted plants and improve the soil.
• They’re easy to dress up. You can make attractive edges for mounded beds by surrounding them with stones, bricks, or any other material you may have on hand. This is especially useful for keeping garden soil from slumping into an adjacent driveway, path, or patio, and it can also slow (but not stop) the intrusion of grass into the beds.
Limitations of mounded beds:
• You must have a location that has both sun and non-contaminated soil.
• Root-intrusion from surrounding trees can be harder to control.
• Burrowing pests can be hard to keep at bay (think moles, voles and rabbits).
• Beds are lower to the ground so they can be harder to work in.
• Mounded beds can take a little more work to keep looking tidy.
Advantages of wood-framed gardens:
• They’re deep. The frame lets you pile a lot of new garden soil on top of the existing soil. This is a huge advantage if your yard is really rocky or the soil is so compacted that you’d otherwise have to work it with a pickaxe. You can build the beds, set them in place in your ideal location, fill them with soil, and start planting. There’s no need to do anything with the grass underneath.
• The depth also allows you to build on top of contaminated soils. If you are working on a site where the soil is contaminated, cover your garden area with gravel and place landscape fabric-lined beds on top. This will prevent the roots of your crops from penetrating the contaminated soil. Fill beds with new, compost rich soil.
• Wood-framed beds make keeping pest and roots from surrounding trees very easy. If we think a raised bed garden we’re designing and building may have pest or root pressure, we’ll line the beds with hardware cloth and landscape fabric to prevent burrowing pests and/or root intrusion.
• They allow for clearly defined paths and planting space. With the frames in place, there’s no worry about tramping on the edges of your beds.
• They’re easier on your back. You can build a wood frame as high as you like, which can be a plus if you want to minimize back stress.
• They expand your garden location options. As long as you have sun, you can pretty much put raised beds anywhere: on top of concrete, on rooftops (pending an engineer's inspection), on steep slopes...so many possibilities!
• You can simplify your garden supply storage by building cold frame/shade cloth structures, trellises, and rabbit fencing right onto your wood-framed beds (see images below).
• They’re a good way to learn some new skills. If you’ve always wanted to learn a little basic woodworking, a wood-framed bed is a great first project.
Limitations of wood-framed gardens:
• You’ll end up investing more money in the initial set up.
• Unless you’re an extremely skilled craftsman, when it comes to wood-framed beds, you’re pretty much limited to working with rectilinear shapes. If your space is smaller, this can end up reducing to total amount of workable square footage you end up with.
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