HOW TO BUILD A RAISED WOODEN VEGGIE BED

Meanwhile on the hassle free side of the garden another project is beginning to take shape as we’re building a nuclear fallout shelter made out of railway sleepers. A giant swimming pool? Play pen for new grandson? Migrant housing? Oh okay - it’s a veggie bed.

What can we make with these?

Lets make a raised veggie bed

Although I don’t have the super-sized garden I left behind in Bournemouth, I haven’t abandoned my dream of having a small corner dedicated to growing my own fruit or vegetables. Let’s face it, with the cost of everything but fresh air going up, food self sufficiency is something to be actively encouraged.

We’ve cleared what had become a dumping ground for old pots, bricks and other rubbish on the east side of the garden to build a lovely rectangular vegetable bed. Not my first choice of location as this side of the garden mostly benefits from morning sunshine but I’m sure we’ll find something that can grow here.

Before it became a dumping ground

Area cleared ready for veggie bed

To build your own rectangular wooden vegetable bed like ours, you’ll need the following materials:

8 x 2.4 m long wooden railway sleepers (Covers)

4 x galvanised corner railway sleeper brackets (Wickes)

4 x heavy duty galvanised angle bracket 150 mm x 150 mm (Wickes)

4 x jointing plates (Wickes)

Landscaping screw bolts (Covers)

Cut the railways sleepers to the desired length. Our rectangle is 2.4 metres long x 1.4 metres wide.

Timber cut & ready to assemble

On a level surface, screw the ends of the sleepers together in an alternating pattern using long landscaping screws/bolts to form a rectangular or desired shape.

Alternate the timber lengths

Lay the first sleeper layer down onto the soil in what will be its final resting place.

Position your cut sleepers and screw together

Take the galvanised corner brackets and press them into the inside corner of your structure.

Galvanised corner brackets with long spikes

Hammer the spikes into the ground until the top of the bracket is slightly below the top edge of the sleeper. Screw the bracket into place using wood screws.

Hammer spike into position then screw into place

Do this for each corner. The long spiked brackets should be enough to anchor down your structure into the ground and together with the weightiness of the sleepers, it’ll take a hurricane to shift this lot.

Build one level on top of the other

Build the top sleeper tier in the same way as the bottom layer then lift one on top of the other or you can build the second tier in situ, working your way round each corner until you have a duplicate rectangle.

Use a galvanised angle bracket to strengthen each corner.

Galvanised angle bracket to secure the inner corner

Finally join the top and bottom tiers together using metal jointing plates along each side to prevent any movement.

You can further protect the interior of your wooden structure by stapling a waterproof membrane to the sides so that the soil is not directly touching the timber or you can just leave it as it is. Most of these sleepers are treated beforehand so should be able to withstand the weather and are likely to take years to rot.

Ready to fill and plant up

Using wooden sleepers gives a softer look to the final structure plus it can be dismantled more easily than a brick built enclosure should we decide we’ve had enough of the Good Life.