I wouldn't use wood. You might consider something like poured concrete or brick... or landscape stone of some sort (bluestone slabs on edge, for instance). But another option is to get the kind of marble or granite slab that is used for countertops - even the manufactured materials of that sort are good. There is a marble/stone shop near me that always puts its off-cuts into the alley and a lot of my raised beds are sided with long narrow pieces I got there for free. But for that price they don't match, and I work with the sizes I get, or the odd time pay to have it cut (we've also done some cuts with a diamond blade). If you wanted to pay for it, you could order pieces to size and pick a material with an optimal thickness. The regular thickness can be a bit fragile in some applications - and long thin pieces are that application. Obviously it needs to be held upright in place somehow too. Finally, isn't there something on the market like a plastic wood? Trex or something? Can that be used in soil? Karin L

Well, I went out to the garden last night at about 9:30pm and found about 15 plants uprooted again. No sign of surface digging or any other disturbance to the soil. I replanted them again and when I returned to the garden this morning, it was a disaster. Half of the plants were uprooted and there were a few little "piles" of plants away from where they were planted. No damage to the plants at all..not chewed, eaten, etc., just uprooted and scattered. Some were pulled almost all of the way into the ground like I reported before. I really need help on this, as I have no idea what is happening! Thanks...

Thanks for the invite Elbourne! I love LA, been there a few times but mostly to New Orleans. Your spot sounds wonderful. I have high cholesterol but I take Simvastatin so I can have an egg when I want one. BTW (chemist pet peeve here) "cholesterol" is a single chemical compound, which is different from high or low density lipoproteins (HDL and LDL) which are also measured in blood tests. I even hear people in the medical field refer to good and bad cholesterol, and I hate it when they do that. ;-] I do agree with nancyjane's point that farm eggs can be quite healthy - i.e. lower in cholesterol - but I frankly do not know anything about the fat content (saturated vs. unsaturated) which together with cholesterol affects LDL/HDL balance. I get farm eggs from someone at work, I have several per week, and they are so good that, well, to heck with cholesterol!

I guess I was confused by the same thing as Dave. But now that I looked at your blog I can see that you are using land scape timbers stacked 2 high for your frame so about 6" which is shorter than the typical raised bed of 10-12" or more. Did you till up the native soil at all yet before piling on the organics? I think even with fluffing up the existing soil and mixing in with the grass/leaf compost in spring the soil still won't be to the top of the frames without bringing in some additional but over time you can keep adding compost and that should raise the level. As long as your native soil is not rock hard clay down past where your tiller is able to reach you should be OK, but you might look into double digging to get your amendments a little deeper. One other note...landscape timbers warp and twist pretty quickly so you might have to replace them every few years. Good luck with the Okrie next season! Okra roots do a good job themselves of breaking up soil to a depth of a couple feet or more so you have that going for you too.