We've been asked this question many times and decided to devote this blog to this topic. Although this is not a comprehensive list of the benefits and drawbacks of raised beds, it's a good place to start and should aid in your decision-making.
1. Soil Condition.
Benefits: If your yard's soil isn't the best (too little/too much of a specific mineral, compacted, rocky, sandy, etc. ), building raised beds to raise your "growing plane" and adding fresh soil will help you address that issue.
Cons: Purchasing new soil is expensive and may take more time (e.g, time-consuming wheelbarrowing it back and forth from the location where it was delivered onsite, or trips to the store).
Additionally, raised beds have a propensity to dry out faster. Given that all of the beneficial microbial activity in your native soil occurs below ground level, you'll need to water them more frequently and they might need to be amended with organic matter more frequently.
- Control for animals and pets.
Benefits: Raised beds help keep some scavenging animals out of your vegetable garden by simply being elevated off the ground. Additionally, it is more likely to prevent dogs from eliminating in areas where you do not want them to.
Additionally, since raised beds offer a more controlled environment, you can more easily add a few components to help keep out unwanted guests: 1. You can more easily keep out borrowing animals by placing wire mesh at the base of your raised beds; 2. You can keep roaming animals and pets out of your raised bed area by erecting a fence around it. But cunning cats will still find a way in.
Cons: Building anything again requires more time and money. That said, you can add a fence around an in-ground garden, but from a design standpoint, it's frequently simpler to do that around another man-made structure...or even attach it directly to your raised beds (that's what I did).
- Weed management.
You can add landscape fabric under your soil to the vegetable garden to provide additional weed protection, whether it's in raised beds or an open area.
Advantages: However, many have discovered that weeds are more easily controlled using raised beds simply because your beds are raised off the ground and you're using "clean" soil. Raised beds are also frequently simpler to access and yank weeds out of, as I mention below.
- Design: Aesthetics and Flow.
Benefits: Raised beds can add value to your outdoor spaces as a design element. Along with improving the overall flow of your outdoor spaces, they can add architectural interest. Even if your vegetables are sprawled out inside the raised beds, they can help keep your vegetable garden looking more orderly.
Cons: On the other hand, if you don't have the right design for your raised beds, what could have been lovely and more useful could end up being an eyesore and challenging to navigate. To put it another way, integrating your vegetables into the rest of your landscaping may look better and create a more organic flow.
So, if you do decide to use raised beds, be sure to give it some thought and plan where you're going to place them.
- Ergonomics in design.
Benefits: Because raised beds are, by definition, elevated above the ground, planting, weeding, and harvesting are easier standing up straight. Less bending is required as you raise your beds higher.
Cons: Building higher beds will also require more time and money.
You can you use our Push N'Grow 100% all natural seed sticks to make your life easier whether you plant in a raised bed or directly into the ground. That's why we created Push N'Grow, the easiest, all natural and most concise way to plant seeds. The seeds are positioned at the correct depth and direction for each specific plant. We have multiple seeds on the stick to ensure germination. All you need to do is push the stick into the ground to the top of the fertilizer line, water, sit back and watch your plants grow.