2' x 8' Raised Garden Bed (2' Sections) — Frame It All (2024)

FAQs

What to plant in a 2x8 raised bed? ›

Stir Fry Garden 2' x 8' Enjoy a feast of fresh bok choy, broccoli, scallions, carrots, beans, peppers, zucchini and eggplant for healthy stir-fries, soups and spring rolls all summer long.

Landscape fabric is beneficial for raised garden beds, here are just a few of the many reasons why you should use landscape fabric for raised bed gardening: Prevents soil erosion in a raised bed: As a liner, landscape fabric lets water drain away from the soil while leaving the soil intact.

Best Soil for Raised Garden Beds

We recommend buying high-quality, nutrient-rich soil in bulk. Or, you can make a soil mix with equal parts topsoil, organic materials (leaves, composted manure, ground bark), and coarse sand.

For a 4x8-foot raised bed with a 6” height, using Mel's Mix: about 5 cubic feet each of compost, peat moss, and vermiculite is needed. It usually takes about two to three bags of purchased fertile mix (1.5 cubic feet each) to cover the bed surface to a depth of 2 inches.

The 4-inch spacing is for bush beans and spinach. A 6-inch spacing is needed for Swiss chard, leaf lettuce and parsley. A whole 12-inch square is required for each broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, corn, eggplant, muskmelon and pepper plant.

The answer is yes. You can line the bottom of your raised garden bed with cardboard and newspaper to block out weeds or act as a barrier against rhizomatous, weedy or invasive plants. While some may opt for landscape fabric, cardboard is a more cost-effective option.

A: You should avoid putting rocks in the bottom of your garden bed. A common myth is that this will improve drainage. Instead, this can actually increase water saturation levels as well as allow gravel to mix in with your soil, which can prove very difficult to remove later on.

The minimum required depth depends on the plant. But on average, a raised garden bed should accommodate about 20 inches of soil for the roots of flowers and vegetables.

How much soil for a 2x8 raised bed? ›

As we've crunched the numbers, you're looking at 13.28 cubic feet of soil if your raised garden bed is 10 inches in depth. If you're mixing your own soil with the classic three-ingredient blend, you'll be dividing that total equally among peat moss, vermiculite, and compost, rounding up to 4.43 cubic feet of each.

A standard raised bed size of 4 feet by 8 feet can yield up to 100 pounds of potatoes. The number of potato plants you can grow in a raised bed depends on the spacing between each plant. Potatoes require 12 inches of spacing between each plant with 18 inches of space between each row.

4 ft. Bed is 4 x 8 feet or 32 square feet 21 emitters in bed = 1/2 gallon per hour drip emitter on 1 foot center Example: For vegetables in the summer, we recommend applying about 1 inch of water over the surface area of the garden bed per week. That is equivalent to 0.623 gallons per sq ft.

If you're looking for high-yield veggies, you can't go wrong with cucumbers, pole beans, radishes, squash, zucchini, peas, and tomatoes. These vegetables are easy to grow and have been known to produce a large amount of produce per plant, providing you with a bountiful harvest that lasts for weeks.

Most garden vegetables will grow well in raised beds. Try growing lettuce, greens, radishes, and strawberries. Bush type vegetables, such as tomatoes, cucumbers, and beans also do well in raised beds. You can install trellises for vegetables that need support, like some tomatoes and beans.

Plant Type

Some perennials that grow well in raised beds include daylilies, lavender, oregano, rhubarb, raspberries, and hostas. Just know that if you plant these in your bed, they'll continue to occupy that space for quite a while (unless you decide to pull them, of course!).