Raised bed gardening is a method of growing plants in beds that are raised up above the normal level of the soil in the garden.  They’re typically inside a wooden frame, usually in a rectangular shape.  The soil may be mixed in with tilled soil underneath, or it can simply be new soil placed on top of untilled ground.

There are many benefits to growing plants in raised beds.  One of the biggest benefits is the ability to harvest more produce from the same space.  Raised bed gardening can actually double or even triple the amount of produce harvested from the same space!  This is mainly due to the fact that the square footage needed for paths is reduced significantly, which means more space for plants.

Another great benefit to growing plants in raised beds is the fact that you can improve your soil conditions more easily, and you can even grow plants in areas with extremely “bad” soil.  For example, if your garden has a lot of clay or very sandy, it can be hard to grow anything.  But if you create a raised bed, you can just put your own bought or created soil mix into the frame and grow your plants in that.

Weeds are also a lot less likely to be a problem in a typical raised bed garden.  Because the soil is confined, it’s much easier to spot any weeds that do pop up, and the weed seeds in the existing soil are buried under too much dirt to sprout up in most cases.

For even more flexibility, the frames can be built with a bottom and placed on tables so the physically challenged and elderly people can reach their plants to care for them more easily.  This is a major benefit for people who otherwise wouldn’t be able to properly care for a garden.

This kind of gardening was made popular by Mel Bartholomew in his book and television series called Square Foot Gardening.  He developed a system that requires about 80% less space than traditional types of gardening. 

Instead of being just a standard raised bed, the bed is divided into sections that have plants of various sizes.  It uses special soil mix that is free of weeds and is ideal for growing almost any kind of plants.  It uses less water, is all organic, and uses far fewer seeds than traditional gardening.  His system claims you can produce 5 times more in the same space of a traditional garden.

The system divides each square foot into a grid, based on what type of plants you wish to grow in that section.  If you want to grow a large plant like broccoli or cabbage, it would take one entire square foot, so that section wouldn’t be divided at all.  If you want to grow radishes, you might section that square foot into sixteen separate spaces, each one with a single radish!

Other gardening systems which are similar have also surfaced.  For instance, Cubed Foot Gardening is very similar to Square Foot Gardening.  The creator of this particular system is Christopher O. Bird, and he credits Mel Bartholomew for creating the original system.  Bartholomew even gave the system an endorsement!

You don’t have to use a grid system at all.  You can use a raised bed to plant a wildflower garden or an herb garden with no definable organization.  This works just fine.  You don’t have to restrict yourself to a grid-based system if you don’t want to.  Raised beds are very flexible!