I am curious to know people’s experiences with metal raised beds? Is there one producer that really stands out?
I have gone back and forth thinking about getting some but it is an investment and one I would want to last for years to come.
Main complains I see while looking is the material is flimsy, not enough bolts/holes to secure pieces, no bracing for the middle or not enough, many are sharp edged.
I would want boxes that are 2ft tall or even more sounds better… the dimensions are not something set in stone, I am just wanting to hear people’s anecdotes.
I have some from Epic Gardening (Birdies brand) and Vego Garden. They both seem to be pretty sturdy with no bowing. They’re filled with logs, sticks/branches, chips, and then compost. Depending on the size they have internal support rods. I have 6.5x3.5 and 8x4s. They’re configurable to different dimensions but these were a good balance of maximizing area while still being able to reach across. My husband found assembly to be pretty straightforward after the first one. The edges are sharp but they come with a gasket to cover the top edge. I haven’t put mine on yet and haven’t cut myself at any rate. These brands use aluzinc; I know there are some others that look similar but are maybe less durable. Mark from the YouTube channel “Self Sufficient Me" dug up a few beds including Birdies after years and there was a noticeable difference in corrosion. Both brands go on really good sales at certain times of the year, which is when I’ve tried to purchase. I think I’ve got twenty in total, not all are placed and filled. I’m hoping they last a very long time. During the highest lumber prices they were more economical than cedar and I didn’t want to use treated wood.
I know both those channels, and was interested to know if anyone had the Birdies. They seem good to me but I always like to hear people’s first hand experiences.
@snarfing the rustoleum sounds like something I would do.
I have a bunch of Sproutbox, Vego and Epic beds. Sproutbox and vego are interchangeable and I’ve attached sprout panels to the vego boxes. Epic is 2” shorter but identical color. Despite sproutbox and vego being nearly identical, the finish on sprouts are far surperior. The Vegos scratched just by looking at them. I’m trying a less expensive round Mocogarden in a week that looks identical to vego. It looks like this one comes with the top rubber banding and is not as cheap as a lot of the offbrands.
If you go for an off brand, I would pick up some of the rubber that’s used to line the top of the metal beds, and just be sure that you have either bought separately or made some cross support struts. The name brands will come with this and tell you at what size you need an extra supports. Don’t trust any videos about how long it takes to set these things up. If you’re making them big like I did, it takes hours. And even the year before when I was just making them standard medium sized it took a long time. You have to peel the protective coating off of both sides of the panels and then best if you have a helper to stand them up as you’re screwing them together while trying not to scratch the finish.
my biggest issue is that a lot of my mounded ground has reseeded plants i don’t want to lose, so I’ve got to be pretty strategic. I’ve also got dwarf fruit trees throughout, a grape arbor and shade cloth thing, and i want good walkways my partner can navigate most of with a cane or walker
meh l will use cardboard to keep it off the baby plants and ground and spray it, once it’s over 50F all day. should dry before the veggies grow in
i have extra poly greenhouse panels left over and am thinking i may try to extend shoulder season in the fall by covering a few with it. if the plants stay low enough in say mid November
Yeah was going to say make sure to check what temps you can do it in. I think its above 55. I did one put together and the rest apart. Some colors took 2-3 Cans for my 4x8x16in beds. Some took 1
these are all the one foot tall ones so wouldn’t be too much, but there’s one that is i think 3 feet tall 8 feet long i might have to wait on until i win the lottery for paint money
@resonanteye I occasionally have to use a cane so strategic positioning is on my mind, too.
I try to keep paths wide enough for my dump-wagon or at least get it close to where I want to be.
I don’t know how well this sketch can be seen but it is my idea for my jungle space this season. I have those big black 27gal plastic totes to use (probably not as many as it shows there).
I figure I will try this layout for this season to see how it functions before buying more stuff! I really did like the jungle esthetic last year though…
I think that’s the biggest downside to these beds- they’re so industrial. You lose the whole jungle/natural feel until mid summer when they’re lost in the plants. I really prefer wood, but after 8 years or so of watching wood warp and trying to bandaid it, we decided it wasn’t worth it anymore and better to go with something that should last longer. If you can afford wood plus heavy steel corners, that’s the best medium because they keep straight better. The last wood bed we built, I bought those and that has aged the best by far.
Sprout is the most expensive, and I recently checked and the price was significantly more than I paid a few years ago. I paid around $175 for the 9 in 1 17” and now it’s listed on sale for $50 plus more. Also, at the time, they only did free shipping over a very large amount and shipping was expensive. I had a friend who wanted one, so we combined our order. Then vego, then epic. But, epic beds are also less metal as sprout and vego do 17” tall and epic is 15”. Vego and epic you can easily get to ship free. Also, it’s worth considering if you would need extension kits and who has the best price on those and extra struts. Only buy with a sale for any as they go on sale all the time. Biggest sales generally around the winter holidays and they throw in free stuff around then with your purchase that is actually useful. Vego and epic are on sale now. Honestly, with the way prices are skyrocketing, I would buy right now because the average holiday sales are generally within $10 of the winter sales. I’m a super penny pincher and watched them all for a year…
I’d experiment with hanging burlap using 1.5" binder clips on at least the sun-facing sides of the metal. This could reduce direct-sun heating of the metal and thus mediate overheating of the soil adjacent to the sides.
My inlaws have a landscape designer that did a bunch of stuff and also made some really nice raised garden beds - corrugated panels + PT lumber (big beds have cross-braces on long edge) + hardware cloth floor + irrigation to each bed. They’ve been installed for like 8yrs now and I’ve never seen anyone’s veggie garden pop as well as theirs (the guy comes back 2x a year and amends the beds with more mushroom compost, fertilizer, mycorrhizae, and other goodies; also non-potable irrigation water)
My own raised beds are made out of salvaged corrugated roof panels, PVC pipe and rebar stakes (panels overlap and get screwed into PVC with stainless screws, PVC pipe is staked to ground; 1/2” hardware cloth fastened to bottom for voles and moles) and split irrigation tube edge protector.
I was on the fence about metal beds at first, thinking they’d get cooked in the 9b NorCal sun - but after a few years seeing my inlaws beds doing well, I decided to give myself a pandemic project to make my own beds and use up the old roofing I had laying around after chicken coop project. I don’t really notice anything negative with the extra heat in summer. Only issue is on two beds I decided to try Hügelkultur with old rotted wood on the bottom - those beds did the worst for like 2yrs. The beds that didn’t get wood, because I ran out, did great.
@armyofda12mnkeys I was able to buy the Birdies for about $180/8x4 and Vego for about $170/8x4 using a quantity discount. Initially both companies didn’t offer beds that could be made 8x4 so I’ve got some of the smaller 6.5x3.5 beds that were also slightly cheaper.
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My husband can put them together in about 30 minutes per bed. He lays out the pieces in their respective positions, only pulls the plastic sheeting back enough to attach the pieces to each other, and uses an electric screwdriver. I rough leveled the ground with a front loader before we placed them. We put about 42-48 inches between plus a wider main aisle so I can pull my Gorilla cart through. We also did some cattle panel trellises between them and that’s worked out pretty well. These are the 15 and 17 inch ones. We have assembled the extra tall ones but haven’t placed them anywhere yet.
