I'm not a fan of raised bed gardens for my family.

Give me the option, and I'll choose an in-ground garden every day of the week. Here are 3 reasons...

Raised bed gardens* are all the rage right now.

I get it… they’re neat, they’re tidy, they fit our cleaned up symmetrical lots-of-open-space American landscape aesthetic.

They’re a quick, arguably easy method of getting rich, deep, loose soil that sets your garden up for success.

And they feel manageable to a brand new gardener. Not to mention they mean less bending over!

I’ll be the first to admit, I recommend them for certain contexts.

But for my family, I choose a different path.

Here’s why…

First, a definition:

*Raised bed garden: An erected frame or border creating a contained area of elevated, improved soil for growing plants, often a foot or more deep.

1. Raised beds require more time and money.

I remember the first raised beds I built.

I began by laying out large, heavy pieces of lumber.

Then, out came my toolbelt and tools. The saw, the impact driver, the measuring tape.

Finally, the boxes were assembled and ready to be positioned. I carefully measured the distance between boxes, squared everything, and voila, I had a neat backyard garden with three beautiful raised beds!

Or did I?

Nope. They had no soil.

So I took my wheelbarrow and delivered cardboard and loads of random organic materials that I spread across the bottom of the beds.

Following that, I hauled much heavier loads of compost and topsoil to fill the beds.

After hours of sweat, shoveling, and maneuvering a heavy wheelbarrow across my yard, the beds were built, filled, and ready to be planted.

But oh, I forgot one thing.

The paths…

My paths were too narrow to be mowed, so out came the wheelbarrow again, this time with loads of wood chips spread on top of cardboard spread on the paths.

Actually, I cheated and borrowed a skid steer.

Finally, everything was complete. It was time for planting.

I took out my planner and my seeds and started planning and planting…

Here a tomato plant, here a row of peppers, there some lettuce seeds scattered.

But 3 tomato plants would never be enough for making ketchup, pizza sauce, canned tomatoes, spaghetti sauce, and all the fresh tomatoes we wanted for our family of 4 at the time!

And where would we put the potatoes? And the winter squash? And the green beans?

I needed more space!

So on to find more gardening space…

This time I measured out another portion of our property where a previous owner had a garden. (I measured it more than twice as big.)

And this time I borrowed the same skid steer, dumped out some compost, borrowed a tiller, and tilled it all in.

Voila. I was ready to plant.

In a fraction of the time, I had prepared more than quadruple the area of my three raised beds.

Fewer hours, fewer dollars, less back pain, and more growing space.

Yes, the raised beds were cute.

But I wasn’t interested in cute. I wanted food.

And food I got.

I’ve never built a raised bed vegetable garden since.

If it was just me, maybe.

If I was 60, maybe.

If I needed a particular aesthetic, maybe.

But for all the vegetables required for a family of 7 (and I’m not just talking fresh lettuce and tomatoes through the summer, I’m talking ALL the vegetables for ALL the year), I simply can’t justify the hours of initial labor, the money spent purchasing building materials or already assembled beds, or the back-breaking work of hauling and shoveling soil and compost.

For a small garden, the time difference may be minimal. But for a large garden, in-ground makes far more sense than raised beds.

2. Raised beds require more water.

My raised beds needed constant attention.

Did you ever notice how quickly that potted plant on your front deck dries out vs the same sized plant in your front flower bed?

It’s a night and day difference.

Pots need water every day or two, while in ground plants can go weeks without water.

Before I started market gardening, I had no irrigation set up in any of my in-ground gardens, and I rarely watered by hand.

Mulch helped with that.

But just like mulch, the in-ground garden also reduced the surface area of soil exposed to wind and sunlight, resulting in less water loss.

Also, the plant roots in my in-ground garden could reach deeper into the native soil to access ground water.

A raised bed is like a giant pot. With all that soil surface area exposed, there’s no vacation mode for a raised bed garden without automated irrigation.

Raised beds need constant attention and water that in-ground gardens never require.

3. Raised beds are impractical for growing large quantities of food.

I garden for a family of 7. My goal is to raise ALL of our own vegetables.

By ALL, I don’t mean only fresh tomatoes for our table in the summer, and fresh lettuce salad in the spring.

I mean ALL.

Tomatoes for sauce and ketchup. Cucumbers for pickles. Beans for the freezer. Potatoes and winter squash for winter eating. Onions and garlic to last until next year’s onion and garlic crop.

I mean ALL.

That requires space.

Not as much as you might think, but certainly multiples more than 3 raised beds.

For example, this year’s winter squash patch is roughly 25 feet by 50 feet.

To translate that into raised beds would require about 40 raised beds!

To top it off, we’d need a comparable area for potatoes. Not to mention the many many other vegetables we grow.

Raised beds are simply impractical for this quantity of vegetables.

Again, if it was only me? Maybe.

If self-sufficiency wasn’t my goal? Maybe.

If I just wanted a little hobby garden? Maybe.

Sure, I could get hooked on the neat and tidy feel of a raised bed. I might even build one just for fun next year.

But for my goal of self-sufficiency? It’s simply not practical.

Now tell me, what type of garden did you choose? Why?

*Please don’t hear me judging you raised bed gardeners. I am well aware of the advantages, and I love seeing your beautiful raised beds.

So let me know if you have a raised bed and why you chose it. Or if you have an in-ground garden, why did you choose that?

And if you want help with next year’s garden, click here. I’ll help you plan and design anything from one small raised bed up to your entire homestead.

Thank you for your support, and happy gardening!

-Laverne