Raising a bed

 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:


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.

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?

 
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:

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:

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