Maintaining the raised beds

I’ve been readying the vegetable beds so the Other Half and I can start planting out brassicas, onions and broad beans between now and Sunday, but ran into a few problems with this bed and another. They’re the first two we built four years ago and are showing signs of their age.

The pressure-treated planks weren’t too bad—especially considering they were salvaged from old fences—but the pressure from my digging was the last straw for the screws and nails, which failed leaving the planks to come adrift from the stakes.

There was no point in leaving the beds as they were, so I took a break from digging and brought out a few more tools: side axe (for prying timbers apart and sharpening stakes, claw hammer for removing old nails, power drill, bits and a bag of decking screws. I also used a handsaw. The piece of slate is my garden workbench. It keeps tools, particularly power tools, off the damp ground.

The reclaimed decking screws I used four years ago were not in good shape, but at least they unscrewed easily.

The nails were in even worse shape, especially as they were supposedly galvanised. All I can say is that the galvanising must have been very, very thin indeed. (And they weren’t salvaged either.)

The temptation is to use the power drill to drive the screws in directly, but it should be resisted—especially with old, dry timber that splits easily. Drill a pilot hole first. The hole is angled to help prevent the plank popping off the stakes (put one screw or nail in at a downward angle, then the other at an upward angle). It’s preferable to use a wood bit, not an HSS bit as I’m using, but I broke my last one when it hit a piece of metal embedded in a stake (and that’s why I always wear safety glasses).

Countersink the hole next. Again, this helps stop the wood from splitting.

Finally, drive the screw home using an appropriate torque setting. Don’t over-drive the screw or the wood will split. If you’re not sure what setting to use, start with a lower amount of torque and work up until the screw goes in smoothly. I don’t use clamps for rough work like this, simply holding the wood in place with a knee or a hand (but well out of way of the drill).

If, despite your best efforts, the wood still wants to split hold it together with a screw driven vertically down the plank. It only works with thick planking, but if it works you can get another few years out of the plank.

With the corners restored, I turned my attention to the long sides. I used untreated wood to make the retaining pegs but these had rotted away, allowing the weight of the soil to push the top planks out of line. (The top of the lower plank can be just seen to the right of the base of the top plank.)

I have a pile of broken hardwood garden stakes that’s kept especially for jobs like this. I picked out a handful of broken lengths, sawed the tops square, cut them to length and sharpened them with the side axe to create new pegs. They will rot, but I’ll get another three to four years use from the timber which is much better than throwing them on a fire.

I used an old lump hammer to drive the new pegs in along the length of the beds. It’s not a good idea to use the back of the side axe or the claw hammer. It takes a lot more force to drive the pegs with the lighter axe or claw hammer than it does with the heavier hammer. As a result, it’s much easier for the axe to bounce back on impact, leaving you with the blade stuck in your head.

With the sides restored, the soil turned over and raked, and the weeds and stones removed, the bed is ready to take the brassica transplants and seedlings. It only leaves me with another three brassica beds to do. And four legume beds. And four leaf vegetable beds. And four root vegetable beds. Actually, it’s not quite that bad as some were dug in February, some were limed and dug last autumn and some don’t have wooden sides yet. Still, it’s busy days for us.