The Best Raised Garden Bed Kits

A child crouching down near a large raised garden bed filled with plants.

Any serious gardener will spend countless hours planning and planting, weeding and watering, cursing groundhogs, and drowning slugs in beer. If you’re up for all of that, a raised-garden-bed kit will certainly make it easier to get started.

A raised bed offers a lot of advantages: It can prevent soil compaction, drain reliably, and extend the growing season. And you can avoid planting in contaminated soil. Also, orderly, organized beds tend to look tidier than an in-ground garden.

To compare the best raised garden beds for sale, I spent 45 hours researching models, talking to gardeners, and comparing materials costs at landscape suppliers and lumber yards. And since I’m the chair of the PTA greening committee at my kids’ elementary school, I got permission to assemble six ready-made raised-bed kits on school grounds, as well as a DIY raised bed made out of notched concrete blocks and 2-by-6 cedar boards. Parents and students helped us fill the beds with 7 cubic yards of compost, soil, and seedlings — approximately 4.5 tons’ worth. We found a lot of good options.



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