Project:Raised Bed (for gardening)

I made a raised bed for gardening, to fit into the corner of our balcony. It is made from pine wood, which I impregnated with wood stain colour (Holzlasurfarbe) before final assembly.

The raised bed's floor is at a slight "V"-shaped angle from both sides, with a small gap at its lowest point in the middle, to allow for water drainage. To protect the pine wood from rotting or mold from the inside, I used a plastic sheet above the floor and dimpled sheed ("Noppenfolie") on the side walls. The raised bed is filled with a layer of small stones, then a layer of bark mulch ("Rindenmulch") and then about 350 Litres of earth. (For decent locally-sourced peat-free earth, I can recommend Heidelberg's recycling places. We bought ours at "Recyclinghof Kirchheim", Oftersheimer Weg 8.)

Total cost (without stones and earth) was around 90 Euros. A comparable-quality raised bed (similar height, wood diameter, legs etc) would be about six times the price. And only have as much fun as making your own.

Construction / Design

The raised bed has 6 legs - four in the corners and 2 in the middle. Legs are 70x70mm profile. I used our router table to add 18mm dados to the legs, to later slide 18mm wooden side panels into the dados: when seen from the top, the corner legs have dados at a 90 degree angle; the middle legs have dados on the left and the right.

Each wooden panel is fastened into the dado with 2 wood screws. After all side panels were added, I added a diagonal piece of wood for more stability, and to support the two angled floor pieces (for drainage, as described above).

The final "wood layer" at the very top of the raised bed mas mitred corners and another 18mm wide / 10mm deep dado from the bottom, so it slides onto the topmost side panels (which stick out by 10mm). That way, everything looks nice and clean (no visible dados in the legs, no visible dimpled sheet etc) and everything is protected from rainwater.

(Photos to follow)