Tall Raised Garden Beds for the Yard with Dogs!

Having a raised garden bed makes veggie growing a little easier for several reasons. In a raised bed the soils warms up  and dries out quicker for spring planting. They are easy to weed as the box is all contained and you can put copper strips around the box like this to prevent slugs. Most people use single 2*4's or 2*8's and frame out a simple box then fill it with top soil and some compost.

I have dogs- three of them.

Here they are in a field of daisies

Dogs don't get not to walk over a 4inch piece of wood and spring soil with little seedlings seems like a great place to lie down and take a nap. My male dog likes to pee against things and really that is not good when you are growing veggies. Rather then putting up prison barb wire around my vegetable bad I just went higher, like 16 inches high.

Out 16 inch raised garden bed

 We found a small local mill and bought rough cut hemlock boards for the beds. The rough boards are a little thicker then what you would find at a hardware store and cheaper. Hemlock tend to be rot resistant and coast about a third of what cedar costs. Wood for this bed cost us $95 total.

 We went with a simple design using 2*8 boards and made the bed 16 feet long by 30 inches wide and 16 inches tall. Then used heavy duty screws with washers to assemble.

Because the bed is so long we actually made it in to two beds so that they stress on the boards by the weight of the soil would be less. We also plan to make a cold frame from an old glass door that will fit on one side or the other of the bed.

The dogs could still get into the bed if they wanted but I have found that they don't. This will cost more to build then a lower bed but if you have back problems or dogs you wont regret it!