Something in the holes - even just gravel - will help them stay in place. I also put a little dirt around the outside edge at the bottom to help hold against the bolcks. I keep smaller herbs planted in mine and don't have problems stepping on the divisions between the holes to get into the bed.

I just finished building my SQ Ft enclosure using Cinder blocks. I stagered each layer so that the joints of the second tier is situated at the middle of the previous layer, this method also locks the corners together. because of my Artificial leg I had to make my enclosure three tiers high for easy accessability. I don't have any prob;ems with stability. Here however is something you could try. Cap the top with a 2X8 (the new type of treated lumber does NOT contain arsinic) on the underside of the 2X8 attach 2X4 legs to go down into the Cinder block in every other hole and fill extra space in holes with dirt

I used cinder blocks as well. I have photos of the beds if you are intersted at mk.whittfamily.us/gallery. At first I didn't think they would hold together well, but after I got the soil in they are together nice and tight, yet still have good drainage from the sides. I like the idea that I can use the cinder blocks elsewhere if I ever get start of the raise garden beds.

Hi Ray,

Yes, I plan on filling the holes and I hadn't thought about mounding up some dirt around the outside perimeter of the bed. Good idea thanks. As for plants in the holes. I had an old cement block laying around the yard, and then when we brought home the new blocks, I noticed the holes in the new blocks were bigger than on the old one. I think there is less space between the holes in the newer blocks. I was thinking I might fill some holes with plants and leave some strategically blank for a foothold or seat around the edge.

Thanks for your input Ray.
:-)
Adam

Hi Lucky Lou,

Inspiring to see you are still gardening with an artificial leg. Must make things a lot more difficult.

Ingenious idea about the cap board! How would you think I could attach the 2x4 inch legs to the board? We are a little construction challenged here at our house. [g] We have the basic hand tools and a circular saw and power drill.

Adam

Hi mlwhitt,

I saw the photos of your beds. Wow you have a lot of photos. :-) You have smaller blocks than I do. I have the 8x8x16 block. I am surprised that you don't have issues of unstability with those blocks. Don't you find if you kick one by accident or knock into them that they have to be reset?

Adam

Thing is that nature abhoors a vacuum - a weed will plant itself in a blank space if you don't put something there a weed will find it.

Ok, Now you have me intrigued, why CANT you plant things in the blocks? I have 3 problems here at my farm, 1, a rambunctious black lab that runs into and over everything, 2, is that i let my hens out in the evening to peck around, and 3rd, is fire ants. Hence when i ran out of room for the traditional large garden in the front 1.5 acre paddock, (which is now all garden), and wanted to 'spice up' pardon the pun, around my house, I dropped cinder blocks i think they call them, lined them up in a circle around one of my smaller trees, stuck dirt in every hole, put another row on top, dirt in every OTHER hole and planted hot and sweet peppers. They seem to be doing GREAT. Am i just lucky?

Very creative Sporthorses. :-) So what you are saying is you have two rows of block with dirt filled in the holes all the way down for depth for those peppers. You filled every other hole to give the peppers room to spread out?

The reason I am saying I don't want to fill the holes with plants is because the blocks are only a wall around a 12x4ft garden bed that will have plants in it and I don't want to have other plants all around the edge, so I can't work in the bed without walking on or crushing the plants in the holes.

Adam

FYI, I recently switched from treated lumber to 4 x 8 x 16 cinders. The treated lumber freaked me out a little bit, and I decided to put my mind at ease.

I have no problems keeping the cinders upright. If you're worried, you can cant them inwards a bit, but I don't even think that's necessary.

A nice side benefit of cinders is that you can pick them up at any time (the soil stays in place every time for me) and check for slugs. Unfortunately, I always find a couple, but the good news is that they are easy to locate and easy to destroy...

I have a lawn full of Bermudagrass, and I am having problems keeping it under control with the cinders, but that's no different than any other type of structure.

When I made my beds out of cinderblock, I only made it 1 block tall. I have two beds that are 4'x8', and they're 8" tall. We removed the grass underneath, then layed the blocks down. Packed some dirt around the outside (just bringing it back up to grass level), and put a little dirt inside each hole, packing it down a little at the bottom. The blocks don't budge. I've accidentally kicked them, and they stay put quite nicely.

As for planting in the holes, I'll be doing 2 on, 2 off. So I plant 2 holes, leave 2 empty. That way, I still have some interest, but I can also still get into the middle of the beds.

Hi Chris,

Heading out to the yard this weekend to get that bed finished. I wondered have you tried taking the lawn back to 1ft around the bed and mulching with cardboard topped with bark mulch?

Thanks sweetbrat, encouraging that you have stability with yours. Like your planting strategy too.

Thanks for all the good input.
:-)
Adam

I have tried many, many things for the Bermuda. It is very persistent. That weed fabric you can buy at Home Depot is nothing... I've tried. If you kill it with vinegar, it comes back twice as strong (and mean). It grows as prolific as any weed in those cracks in your driveway.

For those not familiar with it, it goes on runners that tunnel under, not over like some other centipede grasses. It's great when you have a bald spot, but very tough when you want to keep it out of something.

My best defense has been a high quality, loose garden soil. In the lawn, which is densely packed clay, it's impossible to pull. The loose garden soil makes yanking the new arrivals fairly easy, albiet a never-ending task.

Love the long growing seasons of Texas, love never having to seed grass, but don't love the grass invading my veggies.

Thanks for the advice, though. I'm always open to new ideas.

When I built my cinderblock beds, I put down hardware cloth (a fine metal grid) on top of a layer of cardboard. I was hoping to block the bermuda AND the moles.

The moles have stayed out of my garden, so that was successful, and although I have a few stubborn pieces of grass popping up every month, it's not hard to take care of. I think the cardboard blocked the grass for a year or more, and that killed most of it (or encouraged it to look elsewhere for a way to the light).

(Thought this might a preventative option for those of you building beds these days.)

My cinder block raised beds:


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Paul (aka lil_rhody),

What a neat, clean, and impressive garden space. It has great eye appeal, and would be attractive in any yard---even a front yard (if that should be the only space that one has). I am looking at these pictures and getting ideas for a future space similar to this when we build our home upon retirement. Is the space outside of the raised bed area ( located inside the "U" space) flowers, herbs, or both. It looks more permanent than the raised beds which I am assuming are used only for the veggies. The only change that I might make would be to add a bench in the flower garden area, so that I could enjoy the beauty of it all. Good Work!! Thanks for sharing the pics. Cindy

Yes Cindy, the space inside the "U" is where my wife plants her perennials and herbs. This year she is also filling in areas w/ annuals, something we have not done previously.
Because the "U" faces do south, the cinder block supplies radiant heat early and late in the season to help prolong the growth period of her plants.

As you stated, the raised beds are reserved for veggies. It makes a huge difference in diminishing the weed population (which is very few) and saves ones back when planting and picking veggies. The walls are also the perfect height for sitting and taking a short rest. And when we have cook-outs many people use them for bench seats when games are being played (Bocci, horse shoes, vollyball, etc..)

Of course there are options to cover the block such as stucco, paint, ivy or mosaic tile. We are considering mosaic tile.

Hi all,

Chris, thanks for that tip about the hardware cloth and cardboard. I haven't had moles since I was intensively gardening consistently enough to have built up a great soil and a ton of earthworms. It has been awhile. I have 3 more beds to construct so I am going to try that idea. I am optimistic that I can build up the soil again and have the earthworms and I suppose that will be when the moles come back. :-)

We did get out and stabilize that bed last weekend. We used rebar as suggested and filled some with pea gravel and planted others. Some with strawberry plants on the corners.

It looks pretty stable now and pretty good. I hope I can take a picture later when everything is growing and post it.

Thanks to everyone who shared ideas.
:-)
Adam

I am a new member and have read with interest the submissions by those of you who have put up cement/cinder block raised beds. I'm in the process of doing that very thing now. I'm having some problems in the layout of the block pattern. I am using a block which measures 15 1/8 X 5 3/4. I prefer to overlap the joint on the row below with the next layer on top. I am only going to go two rows high, with a cap stone on the top. Seems no matter what layout I try, I always come out needing a partial block to complete. I can do it of course, by following the same placement of one block directly on top of the other, but would like to do it the other way. I want my finished bed to be rougly 5 ft. by 8 ft. If any of you have had some experience in this with a solution to my delima, I'd sure like to hear from you.
John1931

Here is a link that might be useful: GardenWeb

Hi John 1931,

I am a quilter too, so laying out blocks is a nice puzzle. A picture is worth a thousand words, But here's a try. Maybe some index cards or dominoes, Lego bricks, etc would be helpful to fidget with (I used index cards).

Lay out a square pattern to show the corners of the first tier, with the blocks making a kind of circle, like this.

N N N D
B O O D
B O O D
B H H H

(3 letters make a block, the O's are just dirt.) If you now flip that layer over

D N N N
D O O B
D O O B
K K K B

it will sit on top of the first layer perfectly, and stagger all the joints. Of course you can stretch the sides
by adding blocks, but with this corner pattern reversed for each layer, you should need no partial blocks and the joints would always stagger.

Just avoid the symmetrical layout:

N N N
H O H
H O H
H O H
N N N

That gets you in trouble on the next tier.

Hope this made sense!

Thank you BDot Z9 CA 79 CA.
Your idea made perfect sense to me. Actually while trying to get to sleep last night, I was thinking about how to make it work, and realized that if I would just exactly reverse the order of putting them on the second layer is should work. Sure enough it did this morning. I guess one has to accept the fact that the bricks don't strech and they don't shrink!
I appreciate your help just the same.
John1931

You are welcome just the same :). I'm glad you got it worked out, and good luck with your garden!

BDot

i cement, or, pound pvc pipe every so far apart in the holes, this allows me to put pipe, or rebar, bent into a hoop shape over the entire bed-- either to make a mini greenhouse with plastic early, or for remay to cover the beds, either for frost, bugs, or extend the seasons. trouble is, i'm only on my first 2 beds, and i have 10 to make. even on a farm, its difficult to find, or make, as i'm trying, enough soil to fill.

Also successful in using cement blocks 8 x 8 x16. I use steel rebar to help secure the blocks down thru the holes to the ground below. I also plant in every other hole usually a vining spinach or herb.My biggest problem is keeping the birds and critters out of the ripening vegies.One thing I added was treated 2 x 4's upright in each corner. They are 8 foot high and my husband drilled a hole in each at the top which I have fed a long bamboo poles to make a canopy frame. I use double bird netting to cover the top and sides and hang a dull wind chime which makes a sound. This is the only way I get to eat perfect vegies.
AJ