A raised garden bed has different benefits. It keeps the soil warm and retains moisture longer when needed in the summer.
In winter, it drains better and allows a longer growing season.
But how deep should a raised garden bed be? The soil depth requirements change with shallow roots.
The cost, the soil condition and compaction, the ideal depth for other crops, and the ease of use are also important factors.
The bed should also be raised above the ground for mature gardeners, as bending over may be difficult for them.
Let’s look at these factors to see how many inches in height your bed garden should be.
How Deep Should a Raised Garden Bed Be?
Since the bottom of the container limits how many inches deep the roots can go, you must know which crop you are planting.
Some crops have smaller roots, while others have longer.
Most plant roots we cultivate in the garden have six to eight inches of root systems.
Thus, a raised vegetable garden depth should be at least eight inches, and a 10-inch bed will accommodate most of the plants you can grow in your garden.
Even potatoes can grow within an eight to 10 inches bed unless you want to harvest them from the bottom.
Other vegetables, including watermelon, tomatoes, and broccoli, can grow in an 8-inch bed.
You’ll also find a variety of plants with longer root systems, extending up to 40 inches.
However, this does not mean that you’ll necessarily need to raise the container bed that much because some roots grow sideways.
There are other factors too which influence the bed depth, namely:
Surface Underneath
If your raised container has a hard surface underneath, you’ll need to provide a complete soil depth for the roots of the growing plants.
Also, if you purchase containers for your garden, they might come with hard bottoms so the roots cannot go deeper than the bed height.
Meanwhile, if the soil beneath is soft and allows the roots to grow into it, you can make a shorter bed.
However, if you don’t want the roots to grow into the soil underneath, you’ll need to put insulating material at the bottom of the bed.
Quality of Soil
If you prepare the soil well with enough nutrients and fertile materials, you can make the depth of the bed smaller.
You can experiment with different fertilizers if you maintain the minimum limit of six inches.
If you are planting a new crop in an old bed, remove the mulch and add enough compost to allow maximum nutrients.
Also, it’s necessary to fill the bed with rich soil for as long as roots grow into the ground.
Underneath the good soil, you can put organic matter if you prepare the bed for the first time.
Old rotting logs and sticks are good organic matter if your bed is longer than the length of the roots.
Volume of Soil
Roots will grow wherever they find the nutrients and water, so they can still grow even if you don’t provide them a lot of depth.
The only condition is the availability of plenty of nutrients in the total soil volume.
The volume is even more important than the depth of the soil.
Say you have a raised bed of six inches, but it is three feet wide. It’s an ample space even for sweet potatoes.
As such, you can quickly grow any vegetable in that volume unless you harvest the root crops.
That’s because the plants will have plenty of resources from deeper soil and thrive.
That said, greens and herbs need half a gallon of soil, while tomatoes and cucumbers can thrive in three gallons.
To find out the gallons of soil in a given bed, you can convert it into one cubic foot of soil with 7.48 gallons.
Drainage
Drainage is an excellent advantage of a raised bed, either a permanent border or a metal container.
You can avoid saturation through raised beds as they allow maximum natural drainage. You can also add an aerator for drainage.
Materials such as peat moss, coconut fiber, and fine composted bark will retain water for longer, while gravel and coarse materials will drain faster.
However, the drainage of water will slow down if you mix the two by putting gravel at the bottom and fine material at the top.
Watering Frequency
Watering frequency is one important consideration when choosing the depth of a raised bed.
If you cannot water your taller plants frequently, select a container or border that provides adequate depth.
The depth of the soil mix enables the plants to draw water. Since plants draw water vertically upwards, the width or volume of soil does not matter.
Drainage material also matters in this case, but the most important factor would be the time between two watering sessions.
Bending Needs
The minimum height of the raised garden also depends on the bending needs of the person cultivating the plants and vegetables.
If you, or any of your family members, cannot bend over or sit down for long, you need a higher design that helps them plant easily.
A bed size of three to four feet is enough for such needs. It will also allow the plants with the deepest roots to thrive.
However, if you only need a small depth for planting, you can fill the bottom part of the container with cheap filling materials.
The Right Depth for a Raised Garden
How deep should a raised garden be? It depends on different factors, including drainage, root length of plants, age of the gardener, and costs of materials.
Six inches of soil depth is the minimum for a raised garden bed, but you want to start with eight inches because the depth will decrease as the soil settles.
If you have large containers or cannot set the ground up for enough soil nutrients, you can make a bed with more depth.