Raised Bed Gardening: The Benefits

Raised bed gardening offers a lot of benefits, and many gardeners prefer raised beds to in-ground gardens.

The number one reason why raised bed gardens are so important is that you have full control over the soil quality. You can place a raised bed garden over compacted clay soil and grow beautiful plants without tilling the soil. No-dig practices are extremely beneficial to the environment, but they are also a lot easier for gardeners in terms of work load.

While regenerative farmers will broadfork their soil to help build soil health without releasing carbon, raised bed gardening doesn’t need this extra step.

All of these raised bed benefits are what enabled me to start a garden on a brand new property in July. Raised beds allowed me to get planting fast so that I could have a harvest during my first growing season. It took me less than a week to build 6 raised beds and fill them with compost.

In my experience, starting fresh with in-ground beds takes far longer to establish than a brand new raised bed.

Soil quality control can also be helpful if you know that your garden has contamination from lead paint or PFAS. While the height of your raised bed will need to be taller than the average 6 inches, you can still have a garden with reduced health risks.

Raised beds are also more accessible, which means that more people can grow a garden. Raised beds can even be on legs, so that you can garden in a wheelchair or while standing up.

In this article, we’ll first look at a collection of raised bed garden designs, so that you’ll have plenty of ideas for what to plant in your raised beds.

Then, we’ll explore how raised bed gardens are inherently regenerative, and different ways that you can make your raised bed garden more sustainable.

Regenerative Raised Garden Bed Ideas

Scrumptious Salads Raised Bed Garden Plan

• cucumber
• nasturtium
• scallions
• cherry tomatoes
• little gem lettuce
• butterhead lettuce
• arugula
• radishes
• chives

This raised garden bed layout will have you eating fresh salads every day throughout the summer months.

Little gem lettuce is a gourmet treat, a salad green prized by chefs. Butterhead lettuce is one of my favorite greens to grow, and you can harvest from the same head of lettuce continually until extreme heat sets in. Scallions are also cut and come again - they'll regrow if you cut them down to the ground.

Arugula offers a bit of spice to your salad, along with radishes, chives, and nasturtium.

Nothing is better than freshly picked cucumbers and cherry tomatoes to slice up and add in to your salad bowl.

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Cost Savings Raised Bed Garden Layout

• artichoke
• spinach
• broccoli
• asparagus
• tomatoes
• eggplant
• kale
• peppers
• lettuce
• rosemary
• thyme
• oregano
• basil
• cilantro
• marigolds

For this raised bed garden design, I looked at which vegetables are expensive in the store but are easy and inexpensive to grow. We all have seen the effects of inflation at the grocery store over the last few years, and a well-planned garden can help cut your bill during the summer and fall months.

Rosemary, thyme, oregano, and basil lend themselves well to drying, so you can make your own spices to add to your meals throughout the year. Be sure to harvest from these plants regularly to encourage continual production. Mulch around the rosemary, thyme, and oregano in the late autumn so that these plants can perennialize and provide flavor for years to come.

Asparagus and artichokes are both perennial vegetables as well. While they take a bit of time to get established, their taste alone makes them worth the wait. Note that these two vegetables need cold stratification to germinate from seed; check out our cold stratification chart here for more information.

Spinach and lettuce along with tomatoes and kale will jazz up your salads, and broccoli, eggplant, and peppers can become meal staples.

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Colorful Raised Bed Vegetable Garden Idea

• purple peppers
• frog island purple fava beans
• strawberry spinach
• 3 root grex beet
• easter egg radish
• rainbow carrowspu
• purple tree kale
• purple basil
• cimarron lettuce
• pink celery
• tanya's pink pod bush bean
• pink radicchio
• pink zinnias
• violetta artichoke
• bee balm
• high desert quinoa
• scarlet emperor runner bean
• magnolia blossom snap pea

If you enjoy the beauty of a flower garden but want to grow edible vegetables, this raised bed gardden layout will provide you with abundant harvests of beautiful, colorful, and vibrant vegetables.

This garden plan is also great for gardening with kids - they'll marvel at the colors of these crops!

You can find most of these seeds at a combination of Uprising Seeds, Experimental Farm Network, and Botanical Interests.

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Herbalist's Raised Bed Herb Garden Design

• thyme
• tulsi
• astragalus
• nettles
• german chamomile
• calendula
• motherwort

Make your own teas, tinctures, and salves with this beautiful garden layout. Not only will you be able to stock your medicine cabinet, but you'll also provide food for bees and other beneficial insects with these fragrant herbs.

Tulsi and Chamomile are the only annuals here...well, calendula is an annual too but it self-sows so readily that it might as well be a perennial.

The rest of the herbs will become mainstays in your garden, providing you with your own herbal apothecary year after year.

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Kitchen Staples Raised Bed Garden

• carrots
• onions
• peppers
• tomatoes
• eggplant
• cucumbers
• potatoes
• squash
• chives
• rosemary
• thyme
• oregano
• basil
• marigolds
• zinnias
• tarragon

I designed this raised bed garden layout with kitchen essentials in mind. Many of these ingredients, such as carrots, onions, and potatoes, are popular ingredients that are included in heaps of recipes. Peppers, tomatoes, and eggplant come together to make a delightful ratatouille or caponata, and can be roasted for even more flavor.

The herbs here all can be dried to add to meals any time of the year. Marigold and zinnias add in pops of color and attract helpful pollinators into your garden.

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Long Term Storage Raised Bed Garden Layout

• winter squash
• beets
• potatoes
• onions
• cabbage
• potatoes
• rosemary
• oregano
• basil
• fennel
• mint

This garden plan was inspired by my love of long-term storage foods that don't need to be processed. It's so great to have food last for months without the need for canning or taking up room in the freezer.

Winter squash, potatoes, and onions can last for 8 months after a simple curing process. Beets and cabbage will last for 2-4 months in your fridge. The herbs are meant to be hung to dry, and then added to meals throughout the winter months.

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• celtuce
• salsify
• escarole
• spigarello liscia
• nasturtium
• tanya's pink pod bush bean
• artichokes
• cucuzza squash
• little gem lettuce
• ramps
• mesclun mix
• elephant garlic
• culantro
• coriander
• nettles
• scarlet emperor runner bean
• fava beans

If you enjoy cooking food that is a bit out of the ordinary but also absolutely delicious, this raised bed garden layout has a lot to offer to your cooking routine.

Many of these foods are near-impossible to find in an ordinary grocery store, or even at the farmer's market.

Celtuce is a lettuce-like crop grown for its stem, which tastes like celery. Salsify is a root crop with a nutty and hearty taste.

Escarole, spigarello liscia, gem lettuce, and mesclun mix are all leafy greens that can be eaten raw. Escarole and spigarello liscia also are great in soups and stir fries.

Nasturtium can be grown just for its beautiful looks, but the flowers add a peppery taste to salads and stirfries.

Tanya's pink pod bush bean is a near florescent pink color and is one of my favorite beans to grow, in addition to the fava bean and scarlet emperor runner bean. Create a trellis for the scarlet emperor bean to climb up, and let it be a feature in teh garden.

Artichokes and cucuzza squash are both escellent roasted, nettles makes for an interesting pesto or tea. Elephant garlic will grow garlic heads so huge you won't help but be proud of having grown them.

Culantro and coriander can be added to meals for some spice and seasoning.

Design Your Garden with Raised Beds

Raised Bed Garden Location

When I designed the layout for my first raised bed garden, I took some time to observe the amount of sunlight hours different areas of my yard received. I decided to install the garden in the sunniest spot available, which was also relatively flat and near a water source. I call this garden my “kitchen garden” since it’s near the house and provides quick access to food and herbs.

The beds are oriented so that they face south, and I intentionally plant taller plants towards the east most of the time so that the shorter plants aren’t shaded out.

However, when growing lettuces, brassicas, and other plants that bolt during the heat of summer, I do the opposite.

Raised Bed Materials

I opted for untreated wood for most of my raised beds. They are reinforced with metal brackets on the corners.

I also have two 50 foot long raised beds that I made from a huge pile of bricks that came with the house.

It’s important to make sure that the materials you build your raised bed with are durable, long-lasting, and non-toxic.

Cedar wood is the gold standard for building raised beds as it is naturally long-lasting, rot-resistant, and is easy to find untreated. If you have the budget, this is what I’d recommend for your raised bed garden.

Raised Bed Size and Height

Size

My raised beds are 4 feet wide by 8 feet long. I wouldn’t recommend going any wider than 4 feet wide, since any longer would make it difficult to reach into the center of the bed. If you are shorter than 5 ft 3 or so, you might want to make your beds 3 feet wide to prevent this issue.

Raised beds longer than 8 feet may bow out in the center due to the weight of the soil. If you do want longer beds, you can always add reinforcement to the center of the two longest sides.

Height

My raised beds are 6 inches high, which provides plenty of height for most crops. I can easily sit on the edge of the raised bed to work on the garden.

Taller raised beds may be supportive for those who need easier access to perch on the edge. The flip side of taller beds is that you’ll need more soil.

You can also build or purchase raised beds with legs, or use a hugelculture method to fill your beds inexpensively with less soil.

Strong cedar beds or Birdie’s Raised Beds are a great option for something that won’t warp with the weight of the soil in taller beds.

Raised Bed Gardening: Inherent Regenerative Practices

→ What is regenerative gardening?Regenerative gardening is an environmentally-conscious way to tend to the earth while growing food at the same time. This organic gardening technique sequesters carbon and builds a healthy ecosystem with strategies such as no-till, cover crops, mulch, and diverse plantings.

Regenerative gardening looks to improve the environment by tending to the soil ecology. In turn, you can grow abundant vegetables in a way that is organic, requires less machinery, and oftentimes less overall work and inputs. The biggest benefit of regenerative gardening is that you are able to sequester carbon right in your backyard, as the no-till organic practices are a nature-based solution to climate change.

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How raised bed gardening aligns with regenerative principles

1. Raised bed gardens are no-till
   ‍No-till gardens are better for the environment. The process of tillage turns up stored carbon in the soil and releases it back into the atmosphere. When raised beds are placed directly over the soil and built up with organic matter, we support soil health and carbon storage.
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2. Less topsoil erosion
   ‍In-ground gardens are more susceptible to erosion, which causes precious topsoil to run off. In contrast, the frame of a raised bed garden prevents soil erosion and since no disturbance is happening to the ground below, top soil can be preserved.
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3. Less weeds
   ‍University of Georgia shares that raised bed gardens are less prone to weeds. This means that people with raised gardens are less likely to turn to toxic herbicides to maintain their garden.

Regenerative Gardening with Raised Beds

While there are some ways that raised bed gardens are great for the environment, there are practices you can put in place to make your garden more regenerative. These eco-friendly strategies will help you to build healthy soil, sequester carbon, and create a thriving ecosystem.

1. Organic fertilizers are better for soil microbes and the environment
   Organic fertilizers support the soil microbiome, whereas synthetic fertilizers disrupt the relationship between soil microbes and plants.
   
   This is because synthetic fertilizers provide food directly to the plants. Jeff Lowenfels speaks to this in his book, Teaming with Microbes. While bypassing the plant-microbe relationship sounds good on the surface, it also means that the natural symbiotic relationship between nutrient-delivering microbes and plants are lost. When the plants are no longer providing food for the soil bacteria and fungi, they inevitably die off.
   
   We want to encourage a robust and thriving soil microbiome, because this in turn helps to store carbon in the soil. Additionally, the health of the soil reflects the health of your plants. You’ll get better harvests and have more resilient plants when you tend to the soil.
   
   Synthetic nitrogen is often over-applied, which leads to nitrate emissions into the atmosphere. Nitrates are a greenhouse gas, 200 times more potent than carbon. More than 2% of global emissions are due to synthetic nitrogen applications and the nitrates that are released in the process.

2. Embrace plant diversity to attract beneficial insects and overall soil health
   ‍Avoid monocropping in your garden and instead practice interplanting. In this way, pests are less likely to destroy crops in one fell swoop, and the diversity of plants encourages beneficial insects into the garden to help with pest control.
   
   Diverse plantings also encourage a diversity of soil microbes, which helps build soil health and benefits the environment.
   
   I tend to plant herbs and flowers at the corners or along a short edge of a raised bed to bring in pollinators, beneficials, and to add visual interest to the garden. In the summer when these plants bloom, they are a magnet for a range of insects.
   
   You can also mix crops of different families together. For example, interplant beets in between broccoli, or alternate rows of onions with carrots.

3. Mulch around plants to add organic matter, keep the soil covered, and avoid water evaporation
   ‍Mulch is one of the key ingredients to a regenerative garden, and it’s easy to mulch around your plants in a raised bed.
   
   Mulch options include weed-free organic grass clippings, autumn leaves, organic hay and organic straw.
   
   In our dry summers, organic straw mulch helps to keep the soil cool and keeps the soil moist. I’ve noticed that I need to water my garden less when it’s mulched. Water conservation is essential of keeping our local rivers, streams, and aquifers supplied with water for wildlife.
   
   The prevention of water evaporation also supports the soil microbiome, which does not like to be dried out. Additionally, bare soil releases carbon into the atmosphere.
   
   Mulch also prevents any residual disease from previous crops to be spread to the next crop through overhead watering or rain. This is because as it rains, water isn’t splashing up from the soil onto the leaves of your plants.
   
   As the mulch breaks down, it adds organic matter and nutrients into the soil.

4. Install drip irrigation to conserve water
   ‍Another eco-friendly practice is drip irrigation. According to UMass Amherst, drip irrigation uses up to 80% less water than overhead watering. This reduction is due to how dripline delivers water directly to the roots of the plant and at a slower pace to prevent excess water from evaporating.
   
   Drip irrigation can also help to prevent disease on plants, since no water splashes back from the soil onto the leaves of plants.

5. Keep roots in the ground as much as possible
   ‍At the end of the season or when you harvest certain crops, cut plants back to the ground whenever possible and keep roots in place. This keeps the carbon that the roots stored in the ground. As the roots break down, they add organic matter to your raised beds, which feeds the soil microbes.
   
   While this isn’t possible with root vegetable crops, there are plenty of annuals that this can be done with. Brassicas, lettuces, annual herbs and flowers, beans, squash, and nightshades are all examples of plants that lend themselves to cutting back and leaving the roots behind in the soil.

6. Plant cover crops in your raised beds in the fall
   Cover crops provide a plethora of benefits for your garden. They keep photosynthesis happening in your raised beds, which in turn stores carbon in the soil. They also protect the soil from the harsher elements of autumn and winter, and add nutrients back into the soil as the cover crop reside breaks down.
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7. Add in perennials to store more carbon in the soil
   Since perennials grow for many years and stay in place, they have more opportunity to sequester carbon when compared to annual plants.
   
   Perennials also offer a reliable harvest year after year once they are established. They are anchor points in the raised bed garden and often they contribute to plant diversity.

8. Crop rotation
   ‍Crop rotation helps to prevent disease and pest issues in your raised bed gardens, which in turn reduces the need for pesticide inputs.
   
   Learn more about rotating crop families in our guide here.

Raised bed gardens offer so many opportunities

Since raised beds can be placed on top of any kind of soil, they open the doors to gardening where it may have not been possible before. With the varied heights of raised beds, they are more accessible than in-ground beds.

And to top it off, all of the regenerative gardening practices can be applied to a raised bed garden.

Let the raised bed garden plans in this article inspire you, or create your own thriving backyard oasis.

Before you go...

Learn about regeneration agriculture, or how to get started with regenerative gardening here. There's also this no-dig gardening transition guide if you do have some in-ground beds.