We are planning a raised bed garden this year. Can anyone tell me the minimum depth we should work towards? The first we are building will be for vegetables. Thanks!

Hi Karen,

It largely depends on what you are growing .. some veggies like lettuce or corn with short root systems will do fine at about a foot to a foot and a half .. others veggies like carrots or squash need about 2+ feet in depth and tomatoes and vines like squash or watermelons with deeper root systems do best even deeper like 2.5 feet to 3+ feet.

Double posted .. sorry!

What kind of raised bed are you talking about? Is the bed open on the bottom to the ground? We have a raised bed community garden and you would be surprised how big plants can get in a box less than 12 deep. Some of the boxes have fabric and some don't. We did it because the DOT dumped concrete and other materials when the roads were made and the ground was impossible to dig. Squash and tomatoes do well for us. We don't allow watermelon because they are too big but people have grown them.

My beds have cardboard and landscape fabric at the bottom to prevent weeds and critters coming up. The beds are around 11 inches deep and everything grows just fine.

If you can utilize the existing soil, you can build a raised bed only 6-8 inches deep, double-dig the existing soil to loosen it, fill the raised bed with amended soil and grow just about everything.

Thank you so much. I a m considering squash and pumpkins among others but no root vegetables, well radishes I guess. I appreciate the answers.

I do only raised bed gardening. My soil is no good for traditional. I have one bed 75x4, two are 40x4, two are 18x4, one is 24x4 and two are 4x9. I use cross ties for the sides and ends. That makes my beds about 9 inches in depth. I have found that to be sufficient.

I have planed lettuce, radishes, carrots, broccoli, cabbage, mustard greens, green beans, tomatoes, squash, kohlrabi, spinach, cucumbers, green beans, butter beans and tomatoes. All have thrived.

The key to raised beds is to make your plants grow up, not ramble. I cage everything. I cage squash and you will be surprised at how they move up the cage. I use concrete reinforcement wire to make the cages and make the cages to fit the plant. Squash need a larger cage than tomato, tomatoes need larger cage than cucumber.

Wishing you much success with your raised beds.

Jim

Thanks so much Jim!