DIY Raised Garden Bed with Aluminum Roofing: A Sustainable and Affordable Option for Your Garden

As I get older I realize that my ability to rototill my garden is going to be harder and harder to do. So in an effort to make my future self not hurt as bad I decided to start making some raised beds that will replace my need to have to till the ground and also just be way easier to work with. After doing a quick measure of my garden I decided to make each bed three foot wide and eight foot long. I could have used the panels at their normal width of 26 inches but that is taller really then is needed. Using a carbide bit saw I cut the panels down to 18″

Step one complete. All of the metal has been cut to size and the 4″x4″ fir post has been cut as inside corner supports. In an ideal world I would have used cedar since it is a lot more rot resistant, but with the high price of cedar in our area I used fir instead.

Step two is to screw in the roofing into the corner supports. I had some left over metal screws from my trailer build that worked well to hold it in place.

Once the corners are in place I built the four outside support frames. The cross pieces are spaced every two feet. Once the frame is in place and all sides are screwed together this frame is strong enough to hold my weight. This should help with planting and harvesting it.

All completed and moved out of the way until I harvest my current years garden.

Over all this build took right at about two hours from start to finish. I am going to need to make 7 more total and then fill them with soil before I can use them. This will be a good ongoing project and I should be able to have it all ready by next spring. The boards on the bottom are treated wood so they should last a good 10+ years. I made sure nothing on the inside had any chemicals that would leach into the soils and into the veggies. I don’t feel like shortening my life by using treated anything on the inside. With some of these beds I plan on experimenting with a couple different methods of mulch and water retention. But those will be a seperate blog. Below is a short video of the finished bed. I am going to make a video series of making some small beds for a friend entirely out of recycled materials.