Make your beautiful wooden raised beds last with these 5 simple tips for building, care, and maintenance.
Wooden raised beds are a beautiful and practical statement in the garden. When deciding what kind of beds to use, wooden beds were at the top of my list.
I think wooden raised garden beds are beautiful and add so much interest and structure to a vegetable garden.
These are the main advantages of using wood as the primary material for raised beds:
- customizable (any size, any shape, any height)
- natural, renewable material
- easy to source
- can be relatively inexpensive
One big downside to making garden beds out of wood is that the wood will break down. It won’t happen right away, but because wood is a natural, compostable material, the boards will eventually rot.
Knowing this, my husband and I took some extra steps to protect our wooden raised beds and we hope these things will help delay the decay for as long as possible.
1. Reinforce Corners
2. Use Quality, Thick Wood
3. Seal with Non-Toxic Sealer
4. Ensure Good Drainage
5. Place Brick or Stone Under the Edges
I’ll explain each of these tips in detail in this post and go through why I think this will keep our wood beds going strong for several more years.
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5 Simple Ways to Protect Wood Raised Beds
Before I go through the 5 things I did to protect my wood beds, you may be curious about the current condition of the beds.
At the time of this writing (Feb. 2025), our main 6 wooden raised beds are 4 years old and still solid. They were constructed in March 2021 out of Southern yellow pine boards and I have been growing vegetables, flowers, and herbs in them ever since.
Tip #1: Reinforce Corners
As I was doing research on wooden garden beds, I came across a video MI Gardener did on his raised beds. He recommended reinforcing corners when building wooden beds as they are the first to go as the beds age.
If the corners hold fast, the beds won’t warp and bend, soil will be kept in place, and the structural integrity of the beds will be maintained, thus prolonging the life of the wooden beds.
I found these 17.25″ decorative and practical metal corners to use on our beds. We’ve installed a few more wooden beds since building our original 6 beds and used the same brackets in a smaller 9″ size.
Tip #2: Use Quality, Thick Wood
Another tip is to use the best quality, thickest wood you can afford.
Most raised beds are made of cedar or redwood which decays very slowly. Although this type of wood is expensive, it will last for a long time.
We decided to use pine instead of cedar or redwood because it was more affordable. Cedar and redwood planks are very expensive in our area, and pine is not. However, with the cost savings on the type of wood we chose, we could afford thicker and wider planks, which to me, helped to balance out the necessity of buying soft wood over hard wood.
So yes, I know pine is not the longest lasting wood to use for building raised beds, but it fit better in our budget and I’m not upset about that decision!
As I mentioned, thicker and wider planks of wood are better to use than thin, skinny planks.
Thick, wide planks have less surface area exposed to the soil and elements. Using the thickest and largest boards possible can delay the rate of decay. Thick wood planks or beams break down much more slowly than thin wood.
Think about how quickly shredded wood decays in the compost bin. Imagine throwing a 2×4 wood block in the compost bin. That would take quite a while longer to decay because of how large the wood piece is.
In a similar way, thin wood boards will break down quicker than thick boards. And a bunch of small boards will break down faster than one larger piece because of the extra surface area exposed by the cracks.
Tip #3: Seal Wood with a Non-Toxic Sealer
Treated wood is a controversial topic in the home gardening world. Some people are comfortable using treated wood, and others say that treated wood is unsafe and will leach toxic chemicals into your soil and consequently, your food.
I don’t really have a good answer for whether or not you should use treated wood. I did a little bit of research on it and from what I could find, I decided I was most comfortable using untreated wood to build our own vegetable garden beds.
Untreated wood will break down more quickly, so we also decided to seal the beds (inside and out) with Sunnyside raw linseed oil.
Using some kind of sealer on untreated wood will help prolong the life of the boards by protecting them from moisture. Now, I know the raised beds are outdoors where they will get rained on, and surrounded by soil that holds and releases moisture, and are full of plants that require additional water from the hose or drip irrigation. It’s inevitable that the wood will get wet and may stay wet.
Even so, regularly sealing wooden garden beds can help maintain them.
Ideally, you should seal your boards before building your beds. We didn’t think to do this beforehand, so we sealed them afterward.
There are a few different options you can go with to seal your beds. I would recommend sealing the boards before building the beds, and depending on the type of sealer you choose, applying a fresh coat once a year to maintain the wood.
- Sunnyside raw linseed oil (do not use boiled as that is not safe for gardens)
- Hope’s pure tung oil
- Eco Wood Treatment
Do your own research on these options and choose the one you feel most comfortable with and that fits in your budget.
Make sure to give your boards ample time to cure before filling them with soil.
As our boards have aged, they turned from yellow to dark gray-brown. I like how they look now better when they were brand-new, but you can paint the outside of your beds if you want a different color.
Tip #4: Ensure Good Drainage
Our tall wooden raised garden beds are open at the bottom to the native soil and the boxes were initially filled with a mixture of compost, topsoil, and some peat-moss-based raised bed/potting mixes.
So far, we haven’t had any issues in our raised beds with standing water either in the beds or around them.
Good drainage is essential not only for plant survival, but also for wooden raised beds. If beds are constantly wet or holding too much water, the wood boards will rot much quicker.
I have seen some people line their wood beds with plastic, and while I think that can be fine to do, just make sure the bottom of the bed is open and unlined. Water should be able to seep out of beds and not be kept in.
You’re building a garden bed, not a pond!
I would also like to mention that if you live in a wet climate and get a lot of rainfall, raised beds made of wood may not be the best option for you. I would instead explore stone or metal options if you want to have tall beds.
Tip #5: Place Brick or Stone Under the Edges
The final step I did to help make my wooden raised beds last for as long was possible was to protect the bottom edges from direct contact with the soil. Unfortunately I didn’t think to do this with our original 6 beds, but I did do it with the new beds we added.
Place a layer of brick under the edges of the raised beds to level them and keep them from sitting directly on the soil. You could also use stone or gravel.
Keeping the edges off the ground so that they aren’t directly on damp soil can help protect them from rot and decay.
You can do this by digging a shallow trench that matches the size and shape of your wooden beds and fill the trench with stone or gravel or a level layer of brick. Place your garden bed directly on this stone or brick and check that the bed is level.
Adjust the brick or stone layer accordingly to keep the raised bed level. Then fill your bed with soil.
Wooden Raised Beds Can Last For Years with Proper Maintenance
While wooden beds won’t last forever, they can still last for years and years when properly cared for and maintained. Honestly, the same can be said for most of the things we own!
I know building wooden raised beds can be costly, but following the steps outlined above and treating your wood beds with care will go a long way in making them last and not need to be replaced.
If cost is a barrier to starting a garden, please remember that growing food in the ground in your native soil is a lower cost option, as is building shorter, smaller beds. You don’t have to have massive wooden beds to produce a lot of food in your garden!
But if you like the look of wood raised beds, definitely be sure to follow all the tips we talked about to get the most mileage out of your beds.
Thank you for reading this post. Do you have any additional tips for maintaining wooden raised beds? Please share your tips and ideas in the comments below!