Guestbook Question: Do the sides of the beds bow?

"Hey,
I am just starting to garden and had been looking all over for inexpensive wood! Fence slats! Eureka@! I just purchased ready made beds from a cool place in Massachusettes, but will use your method here for a couple smaller beds. I've been told not to use anything thinner than 2" for the sides, so was looking at 2x12 redwood...$$$$. Have you found the sides bow at all?? Will check in on your blog. So far, your little site has been very informative!Thanks!
Kelly"

Hello Kelly, and thanks for reading my blog.

The fencing that I have been using is 5/8" thick (actual). The beds are 6' long X 2' wide. The ends of the fence boards are secured to a 2X4 (nominal). I would only expect to see bowing along the 6' lengths (the front and back of the beds); I have not. The SFG beds are new, so they are not a good point of reference; however, the 6'X2'X15" cedar bed I built last year has been filled with about 12 cu. ft. of potting soil for over a year now and the sides have not bowed at all; the floor is still solid also.

Let's talk a little bit about cost:

Keep in mind that my beds are "elevated" off of the ground, so there is no ground contact with the fencing, they do not get kicked, weed whacked, hit with shovels or lawnmowers, etc. If I was using fence boards to make raised beds that sat on the ground I would feel comfortable doing so, but I think I would probably double them up to increase the thickness. A 3'X3'X6" raised bed that sat on the ground would cost me around $15 (cedar) at Home Depot (4 fence boards and a 2X4X6 redwood stud to cut up and connect the corners to). Those same dimensions using 2"X6" redwood lumber would cost about $18 (one 2"X6"X12'). I didn't see 2"X12" redwood lumber at Home Depot, but I imagine that would be considerably more.

Since I would rather have beds that are elevated off the ground, the thickness of one fence board is sufficient. The three elevated planters that I built cost me $23 each (the redwood fencing was on sale, otherwise it would have cost me $35 each). The elevated beds cost more because of the extra cost associated with the floor. In addition to three extra boards for the floor, I had to purchase 8" wide fence boards to compensate for the floor thickness (and the height of the ledge that the floor sits on); 8" fence boards are a couple $ more per board than 6". If the 8" wide redwood fencing wasn't on sale I could have used 6" cedar boards for the floor and saved a couple bucks. If I had used the 6" cedar fence boards for the front, back and sides of my SFG beds that would have save me about $8 per bed, but I would have ended up with beds that would only be about 4.5" deep. (For whatever reason, Home Depot doesn't sell 8" wide cedar fencing.

There are some options to reduce the cost of the elevated beds. A significant cost savings can be achieved by using whitewood fence boards and studs. But since whitewood is primarily pine or fir, I would be concerned about it rotting fairly quickly unless is treated it in some way, which would then increase the cost. So I decided to stick with redwood and/or cedar when building my elevated beds. I'm hoping that the initial extra expense will ultimately save me $$ because the beds will last longer.