For years we have wanted to build raised vegetable beds but haven’t been able to until this year! We finally got a plan in place and built these two beauties for under $30 a piece last weekend! What’s great about raised beds is that they don’t take up much space and you plant them using square footage instead of in rows – that way you can harvest more!

This is a perfect garden project for a newbie or even for someone who has built things before. Here’s our simple DIY instructions for building raised vegetable beds for under $30!

First – you need to grab some hard workers that can build these babies while you snap pictures for your blog or for memories. Whichever works.

Next – you’re going to need SIX 5/8-in x 5- 1/2-in x 6-ft cedar dog-ear wood fence pickets. You want to use cedar or some other kind of UN-treated wood. If you use treated, the chemicals can leach into your food. Not good. Using cedar pickets are a great option since they won’t rot and are super cheap. Lowes sells them for $2.15 a piece at our store!
Measure TWO of the boards in the middle to cut in half to make the end pieces. You will end up with FOUR end pieces.

Use a cedar 2×4, 8 ft long – cut into 11-in sections to use as your supports to screw your pickets to. Make sure to pre drill your holes into the fence picket so that your wood doesn’t split. Now, use 1 1/4-in screws to screw each side panel onto the 2×4 section. Here we used 4 screws – but 2 would be just fine – as we did below.

Once you have all four of your bottom boards screwed to the 2×4’s – start on your top layer and do the same thing as above.

That’s it! Can you believe it’s that easy?

We made two raised beds and have filled them with lots of rich compost, garden soil and hummus. Plus we’ve added LOTS of plants! My husband thinks I’m crazy – but I did a ton of research to see what was the best way to plant in raised beds. Time will tell!

Be on the lookout in the next couple of days as I share our soil mixture and planting plans with you! These DIY Raised Vegetable Beds were made for under $30 a piece and are EASY AND CHEAP! Now..get to building and you’ll have lots of wonderful produce to share with your family and friends this summer!