Sure, many do. Especially those who use Sq. Foot Gardening so be sure to check out that forum as well.

The link below is to many of the previous discussions here on raised bed gardening. You may wish to browse through them for lots of info on the topic.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: Raised Bed Gardening discussions

We have raised beds, AND I use the no-till system. I guess it may depend on the size of your garden. Ours is 30x40, and we get a lot of food out of there. Our beds are raised with stone slabs that we scavenged, and they are just leaned up together, which makes the bed easy to pull apart temporarily if we want to dig up the potatoes, for example. Just pile soil on a neighboring bed as we dig, replace soil and retaining stones when done. Sometimes in winter, I trench compost right in the beds, and in the spring, add a layer of compost and plant. We also have scavenged paving stones in the aisles too, so that helps keep weeds down. I just weed-whack the cracks. Easy.

I started my raised bed garden last year. I have a lot less weeding to do than I used to in the traditional garden at our old house. I have a few things like potatoes (I bought too many) in the ground and zucchini in it's own spot (almost like a filled in fire ring) because it takes up so much room in the bed.

If you'd like to see pictures of my garden, click the link below.

Here is a link that might be useful: Tales of a Transplanted Gardener

I just love my raised beds. Honestly, I haven't weeded in over a year. I did about a soup can full in the spring and the odd weed here and there, but nothing that required more than a light tug to loosen. No, my yield isn't as high as traditional row gardeners, but my back is happier, my knees are happier and things are just tidier. AND! I can make it any shape I want.

Here's one half of my raised beds
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Like greenbean, you can click below for more pictures.

Here is a link that might be useful: The Corner Yard

I do raised beds.

Easy to do and even easier to maintain. Since I have edging around the beds, it keeps the weeds and grass from invading. Just the odd weed that blows in. Plus I never walk on it, so I don't have to till it.

Those look very nice greenbean. What is in the milk jugs and what do they do?

I am off to check out some of the discussions.

Helen

I garden in-ground, and must confess I'm perplexed by the assumption, often repeated on gardening forums, that in-ground gardening means heavy maintenance and yearly tilling. I feel like there's a false dichotomy being created. In particular it would be a shame if new gardeners felt they absolutely had to build raised beds and buy soil and compost before they could even get started, or if older gardeners felt they had to give up gardening for lack of resources for raised beds.

Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but I dug my garden once, with a spade and garden fork (it was lawn) and expect never to do it again. I would never walk or stand in my (in-ground) garden beds - they are constrained in width by what is easy for me to reach over - therefore the soil doesn't compact. I amend with home made compost, aged manure and dig in the odd bit of green manure, but I can work the amendments in with a garden fork or a hand trowel - and my soil has a high proportion of clay! Mulch takes care of most weeds, and any that poke through are easy to get out. I don't own a hoe.

Don't get me wrong, I like the look of raised beds, and may well have some at a future time. Just happens they don't suit where I'm gardening now. But I think the assumption that in-ground gardening has to be hard yakka is false (although it's possible to make anything harder than it needs to be, I suppose!).

I started my raised beds 3 years ago with wood and this year I started replacing my beds with the mason blocks.
When I started I tried to use the square foot gardening method, but did not have the money for all the different composts and used mostly composted manure and what I had from the year before.
The biggest problem I ran into was weeds in my beds but there is an upside: all you do is layer shredded newspaper, cardboard or whatever else you get free around your plants and no more weeds, you have added moisture control, + you have materials that compost down for you.
I love my raised beds and really encourage others to try it.

You might be able to tell by my forum moniker that, yes, I certainly do. And I wouldn't garden any other way.

This is my first year gardening and I have 2 raised beds. Each 12 x 4 ft. They both have benches so I can sit if I have to (I am over 9.5 month pregnant).

They have been great and easy to manage.

Knock on wood but I have had very little bug, critter damage.

Here is a link that might be useful: raised garden: wood and cinderblock

The amount you have to water more isn't fun (unless you have an automatic system), but you can give the top 6/8/10"+ of your plant a wonderful set of nutrient-rich soil to get started and thrive on.

Root zone temperature aspects are at play, too...both for starting a few weeks early and extending a few weeks later certain crops.

For the most part it's ideal to get your ground soil in this condition, but raised beds are a shortcut many people are willing to spend money on.

Oh thank you for so much wonderful information. I spoke with my friend earlier this mornng and she told me that a couple of the local garden centers usually have a major sale on landscaping timbers down in the fall so they can move then on out of inventory for winter. That might just be what the doctor ordered for us. I love the look of landscaping timbers and I think it would have a more polished look. I know, I know, I am vain and all that !! But I love a neat and orderly space to live in. We do have a couple of acres to play with though, so this should prove to be fun. I do know that I do NOT wish to rassle that tiller no more !! My shoulders feel like I fought a round with Mohammed Ali !!

Helen

I've been using bermed or raised beds since 1995, and I prefer the beds with edging because:
Less soil loss to the walkway during rains or weeding
Better weed control
Easier for my weed-eater-happy son to know where to STOP
Organizes my eye better...when it looks orderly its easier to keep it that way
Amend where you grow, instead of a random mix into a big tilled plot
Easier to add fences to keep out the dogs, rabbits, etc. The wood edge means I don't need to bury the fence.

I have both raised and tilled garden areas. This year I am also growing in a hoophouse with tilled 4ft. wide beds. My 16 raised beds were made with 16ft, 12inch high cedar planks ( a little pricy, but suppose to last longer) they are 4 ft. wide. At 12inches high I can sit on my little garden seat and plant or weed or whatever and scoot down the path, it even has a cup holder (or wine holder as in my case LOL) The soil is very easy to work with and just gets better every year and I continually improve it. They do take more watering but warm up much faster in the spring. Plus this year we built inexpensive mini hoops to put over them and I was planting peas and lettuces and other spring crops in March.

i do raised bed gardening to keep out gophers, we lined the bottom with 1/2 inch hardware cloth(wire) before we filled it, small bed 15 feet by 5 feet

So don't till ... I just spread a thick layer of reasonably good compost onto the dirt, planted the veggies in holes and mulched it real deep. They are thriving.

{{gwi:95673}}

It bears repeating that you don't have to have raised beds to do no-till gardening. And raised beds do have their own trade-offs. I do no-till in raised beds, but only a few inches high, and no imported soil mix.
For weeding, you might want to invest in a nice weeding hoe, an "onion hoe" style for example. Don't think this is for bending over and scraping hard. Think more like standing straight up with the handle close to your body while making slicing strokes to kill weeds. You do need to keep it sharp though.

Helen,
The milk jugs have water with food coloring in them. They are there because I set out my plants a little early. The colored water absorbs heat and keeps the plants warmer. I decided to leave them in around the heat loving plants as our nights are pretty cool all summer and I thought maybe the extra warmth might be helpful (I hope it doesn't turn out to be a bad idea...)

You don't have to spend a lot of money on raised beds. Nearly everything I've used has been free (craigslist & freecycle). It is a bit time consuming but it certainly can be done for cheap. My blog posts from January are about how I built the garden. There are also more from when I expanded it in the Feb posts.

Here is a link that might be useful: Tales of a Transplanted Gardener

Raised beds have upsides and downsides.

On the upside, raised beds are tidy-looking, easier to work with hand tools, and correct drainage problems if you have heavy soil.

On the downside, raised beds for a whole garden are EXPENSIVE -- you have to buy soil (which may be the exact, same lousy ground in need of amendment that you would have had anyway), as well as building material (free only works if you either luck into a large amount of matching building materials or don't care what the beds look like) -- they heat the roots excessively in areas with blistering hot summers, and they are hard to keep watered if the soil is sandy or the local climate is dry.

Raised beds are very fashionable right now, but they aren't magic. Essentially, they are very large containers and subject to the advantages and disadvantages of container gardening.

As I continue to experiment, I think that I will be wanting to use some raised beds for specific purposes -- mainly keeping invasive things like bramble fruit and mints under control -- while doing most of the gardening in the ground.

But I'm in a hot climate with very sandy soil that is so hard to keep watered that I'm considering putting some of the water hogs into sunken beds next year. Raised beds may meed your needs perfectly.

And if you're gardening for just one or two people or as a hobby rather than expecting to provide a significant contribution to a family's meals the cost won't be as much of an issue for a couple 2x8 or 3x10 beds as if I were to put my 1600+sq feet (and expanding), garden into them.

g'day helen we do and have done for around a decade now never to return to those backbreaking ways. haven't done any stat's be a bit hard to realy but i'd suggest raised bed gardening has overtaken conventional till type gardening.

len

Here is a link that might be useful: lens garden page

I have both raised beds and lots of conventional garden space. I like both. Root crops, melons, and broccoli go in the raised beds. Sweet corn, tomatoes, beans, peppers, and glads go in the flatter gardens.

I don't border my raised beds and have no problems with erosion as the super absorbent soil soaks it up. Besides I can easily work in compost and any other amendments with a tiller much more easily than back break stirring by hand

Today, I went for a little ride with my friend up the street and she introduced me to a friend of hers that has raised beds. Oh they are WONDERFUL !! They have used landscaping timbers on most of theirs and really incorporated them into the landscape so beautifully. They have squash, tomatos, cucumbers, beans, okra, cantaloups, watermelons, peppers (several varieties), herbs, eggplants, corn, and lots of other things that I just don't recall. She saves newspapers and once she has planted, she mulches with the papers and alfalfa straw. So, the soil keeps from drying out quickly. And it drains well when there is excessive rain. She told us she started out years ago with a regular square garden that she had plowed and disced and then she tilled it nearly every day to keep weeds out completely. Then once she got so she just couldn't till anymore and bending became a problem for her, she went to this raised bed system. She says she grows enough in the beds to fill her pantry full of wonderful canned stuff for winter, plus she freezes plenty too.

Oh, I remember, she has raspberries, and blackberries that grow up a trellis type contraption. And also she has strawberries as well as blueberries too. The blueberries are used in a decorative manner as well but are not in raised beds.
Today was a day that I really wished I had a camera. I would have taken hundreds of them. I am so hyped up now, I doubt I will sleep a wink tonight. LOL

I love the pictures and information you have shown me. Thank you all. What inspirations you all are.

Helen