Just wondering what your raised beds are made of? And how big they are? I have 3 made of 2 x 12's, 2 are 6 x 12 and 1 is just a 4 x 12.

My raised beds are made out of plain old garden soil and organic matter raked into long beds. No frames. My sub-soil is black clay gumbo over broken rock and river rocks. About two feet down there's a layer of impervious hard pan that you can only get through with a pick-axe. Black gumbo is supposed to be the most difficult soil on earth, but it's fertile. It also likes to swallow anything you put on top of it, including driveways.

I incorporate purchased soil and organic matter into it, keeping it well mixed up. Neighbors who have conventional (and very beautiful) raised beds often end up frustrated because putting a raised bed filled with lovely soil over black mud that's had time to dry out is like trying to garden over a sieve, even if they've placed a ground cloth barrier between the bed and the subsoil. All water and nutrients go straight to China and don't come back until December when our water table is about 2 inches higher than ground level.

Thanks for starting this, daylilydude.

This was my first year with raised beds. I had wanted them for quite awhile, but never got around to building them from wood like I had imagined. This year, I decided to just rake up the soil from the walkways and leave it at that. Boy, was I ever glad that I did. We had so much rain this year I think my garden would have been a disaster if I hadn't.

I don't know how well the raised beds will do in dry years. Our base is shale, so it drains very quickly. We have amended the soil over the years with lots of mulch, compost, and this year put in composted horse manure. I had the best growing season ever.

My little fenced-in garden area doesn't have room for everything and that is the only area that was raised this year. I will be working on the tomato beds for next season. I've been lucky and the critters don't go after my maters much so they haven't been given protection inside the fenced area.

The garden in our "new" place was in a state of neglect and disrepair. There were 3 wooden framed raised beds, but two of them were beginning to rot, so I just took them apart and kept only one to experiment with.
I will say that the soil of the main garden bed tends to crack when dry, whereas, whatever they used to fill the raised bed is less prone to do so. I put bell peppers and eggplant in the raised beds, and they are doing reasonably well, considering the cool and extremely wet summer that we've had this year. So in that respect, the raised bed has allowed for drainage that the rest of the garden is not getting.
On the negative side, the wooden framework and the corners make weeding with my Mantis difficult.
I love the Mantis and it makes short work of weeding and has taken the strain out of gardening for my worn out old back.

Anyone else here use a small tiller with raised bed gardening?

The wifey bought me a hand tiller very similar to what's called the "claw" and i love it! Yes, it does involve a bit of work to use, but i don't have to walk in my beds at all and i think it's a lot less work than trying to till in a boxed raised bed.

May I join in the discussion?
My beds are made of 2x12,s 3 high, giving me 22 1/2 inches, just right to sit on.
They are 16x4'-- at the moment, I only have 4, but plan on filling up the whole garden with them, 28 eventually.
They have their challenges, but dosen't every gardener look for challenges to solve?
Thanks for this forum, too.

Your very welcome to join any discussion here and welcome to Raised bed garden forum! WOW! that is alot of gardening beds, i wish i had that kinda room.

My first raised bed is soil I piled up about a foot high and raked level about 2 1/2 feet wide by 4ft. I mixed in some manure and compost and a little organic fertilizer and watered in well and let dry out.I then covered the bed with maybe 5 or6 layers of newspaper and topped off with about 3 or 4 in. of straw and wet that down them pushed away the mulch 2 or3 in. in a couple of places towards the end of the bed and planted 2 squash through the newspaper and wet it down. We planted zucchini in our demo garden this way and that is the healthiest zucchini plants I have ever seen and stand up to the 110+ deg. heat like you wouldn't believe. Planted them mid July which was the hottest on record and they are beautiful and loaded with blooms. In our demo garden we installed soaker hoses on a timer under the newspaper which I plan to do for the main beds but will just use drip on this small bed.

WE have 5 beds that are 4'x16 ft and are made of stacked concrete blocks and one bed that is about 2'x16 ft of the concrete block and 2 bed of same construction that are 4'x4'. All the blocks are set dry but have concrete put into some of the block holes to stiffen it up. All beds are two blocks high. With this size garden we grow twice as much as we used to in a much larger space.

Mine are made out of cinder blocks.
they are only 1 block high.
I plant a carrot in each hole and it make a pretty border
I have 4 in teh front yard 3X11 and 4 in the back yard 4X4.
I have a couple made out of wood too, 2 in front and 2 in back, but when they get bad I'll change those over too...