How to Install Garden Beds on a Homestead: Two Methods

There are two fairly easy ways to install new garden beds on your homestead.

Homesteading is fulfilling work. It teaches kids where food comes from and helps keep the toxin load in your food low. When you grow your own food you are less likely to spray it with toxic chemicals.

We have built garden beds in two different ways. We chose these two options to keep costs as close to free as possible. Raised garden beds cost more. When you want to keep the budget low, these two options for creating garden beds from scratch are perfect.

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Installing Garden Beds for a Homestead: Part One

The first method we tried for putting in new garden beds was a method I learned in the book Mini Farming. (Get it on Amazon here.) It does not require extra soil unless you want to add it. It is hard work, but depending on your current soil, it may be the best method for you. For any garden beds, to keep costs low, start composting about a year before you plan to install your garden beds. This gives your compost time to mature in order to reduce how much - if any - dirt you will need to buy.

Double Dug Method

Double dug garden beds are exactly that: Dug down double the length of a shovel.

We use a spade and dig one length down (about 12 inches). That soil gets placed in a wheelbarrow and then we dug down another shovel length and set that soil aside. Do this the entire width of your garden bed. You can see in the photo how we dig out a row of lawn and flip it, then dig another. We place the first row into the trench of the next and so on.

Then repeat the process another row back. The soil chunks in the wheelbarrow will have grass in them if you are digging a garden bed in an area where you had lawn. You will turn those grass side down and fill in the first row you dug out so it ends up with soil on the top rather than grass. The grass gets buried and helps fertilize the garden as it breaks down.

Then pour the rest of the dirt from the first row on row one and dig row 3. After you dig row 3 out, place the grass chunks from row 2 into that opening and fill with dirt on top. Keep digging out a row two shovel lengths down and refilling the previous row until you reach the length of garden bed that you want.

Our first garden had 4 by 16-foot beds. Our current garden area has 4 by 25-foot beds. The work is worth it for double dug beds.

You can buy bags of organic compost or garden soil to put on top to help create a fresh planting space. Or you can begin composting your own waste about a year before you need to put it in your first bed. It took that long for our first load of compost to be ready for the garden.

Pros and Cons of the Double Dug Garden Bed Install

My preference for installing new garden beds is this method over the next one I will talk about. But that is also because this is the second time I have used this method. It works well for getting you “plantable” garden beds in little time with little money.

If you are working in a smaller space, like our first garden, your double dug beds may look more like the photo below. When we installed these beds, we did use the cheapest 2x4s to create a border. We double dug the beds and added some bags of compost on top.

In my experience, the wood borders are not necessary. The weeds still grow, and you may find that the wood rots fairly quickly anyway.

The bad part about this method is it is labor intensive. You need to be in good health – or find a helper that is – to do all this digging, squatting and lifting. It is tiring. But, the garden beds are neat and tidy almost immediately and ready for seeds to go in the ground.

Installing Garden Beds: Part Two

I am just trying out this method for the first time. We decided to expand our garden area from 4 , 25x4 foot beds to 6 beds ,and now to a total of 12 beds. I am kind of tired of digging. So, my husband found the cardboard box method, and we are giving it a go.

Here is how we put these beds in quickly. They are quick if you have the supplies you need.

Cardboard Box Method

The first step to putting the garden beds in, with cardboard, is to determine your garden area. Then map out how wide and long your garden beds will be. After, find a bunch of cardboard.

I recently saw on Instagram that you can ask Costco for flat cardboard pieces and they may let you go through the store and take the loose cardboard. I cannot confirm this is true, but worth an ask at your local store.

My husband works at a warehouse, so we can get free pallets and free scrap cardboard pieces all the time. He brought cardboard home over a couple of weeks and as I got pieces I placed them in our new garden bed area. This was my first mistake, so do not do this!

What you want to do is gather all the cardboard for either all the beds you want to put in or for one at a time. You lay the cardboard on the grass. We then layered on used hay and straw from our goat area. Soiled hay makes great green manure for garden fertilizing, so we raked it out of the goat area and placed a thick layer on top of the cardboard.

In the photo below, you can see our double dug beds on the right of the garden. The cardboard beds are on the left.

Then we pour compost over the hay. A good thick layer is best. So again, start composting before you start your garden if possible. Then, when you have done those steps, you can plant your seeds.

When I see how well this garden bed method works (or doesn’t) I will update here. If you have used either of these methods, please comment on what worked best for you.

What I Would Do Differently, With the Cardboard Method

The cardboard method may become my favorite with the lessons I learned. First off, it is much less labor to lay sheets of cardboard down on grass than to dig up two layers of dirt.

The error I made was laying the cardboard in an area where our animals were free ranging. I put the cardboard down and was layering hay on the garden beds before I had the area fenced off. The animals, of course, scratched the cardboard, and the wind blew the cardboard around, so it had to be straightened up multiple times.

I think this method would have been user-friendly from the start had I saved up what I needed to put in one bed at a time. Then the hay and compost would have held the cardboard down and the fencing would have kept the animals from messing it all up.

Live and learn, as they say.

Installing Garden Beds: Two Easy Ways

No matter which method to install garden beds you choose, both work to get the soil activated, get fresh compost over the planting area, and get you garden space without requiring a major lumber bill. Work at the pace you can handle. These methods are budget-saving ways to install new garden beds.

If you missed my previous post about How to Start a Farm, you could catch up by reading that. Then start those garden beds and get to planting! Gardening with Kids is a fun way to teach life skills and learn together.

>>Up next, I share our simple and cost-saving DIY compost bin idea. It was not only necessary for saving money for our farm but also a great learning opportunity for our oldest son.