Looking to start or expand your garden? Raised bed gardening is an easy way to build a garden when your native soils are not amenable for gardening, may contain contaminants, or are too rocky to dig into. A cattle panel raised garden bed is the most cost effective, durable and long lasting, and easiest to build of the bunch. Farm store to assembled in a single day…
Why A Cattle Panel Raised Garden Bed
Benefits of Raised Garden Beds
It’s Spring and you’re in a hurry to prepare a place to grow your own fruit, veggies, salads, legumes and delicious edibles for your family to enjoy–or you’re ahead of the game and ready to lay the groundwork for your spring garden in the late summer, fall, or winter.
The traditional way to build a raised garden bed is with lumber. Lumber prices vary and have late been very expensive. Additionally, wood degrades with time, exposure to the sun, and moisture–all of which your garden should have plenty. Sure you could use treated wood which will extend its lifespan a good bit–but if you’re looking to produce food for your family and modern homestead because you want to control what goes into your food–the chemicals used in treated lumber becomes a non-starter. So instead of building something that has a limited lifespan, build a cattle panel version which will withstand the elements, and far outlast its lumber based alternative.
This raised gardening method not only incorporates some long-held traditions and methods from the advent of agriculture, but will give you a durable base from which to begin your gardening adventure, E X P L O R I N G self-sufficient food generation for years to come.
Soil Erosion & Control: If you know many farmers, or have been gardening for a while–good, quality soil is a precious resource that you put an initial investment into and work to maintain and rejuvenate with time. Contain it to your beds for use only by your plants, and prevent erosion.
Water Efficiency: Only water the soil directly used by your garden and take advantage of water-absorbing substrates to retain excess water for availability by your plants when they need them.
Air Pruning: By having a cattle panel raised bed with a fabric cloth lining, you allow air flow around the perimeter which will naturally air-prune the root systems of your plants–promoting a healthy growing pattern, and increasing yield.
*Washington.edu
Limited Space: You can customize this design to the amount of garden space you need and build large beds, small beds, round, square, and rectangular beds; to fit odd shapes and spaces to suit your need.
Cost Effectiveness
Comparison: Lumber vs Cattle Panel
Let’s use two 4 x 16 (2ft deep) garden as a starting place for our garden plan–giving us 128 sq ft of garden space (2x 64sqft beds). This is a good starter size that will allow you to produce an abundance of food to use, preserve, and store year round. It is also manageable to water this size of garden via rainwater collection, even within restrictive state laws which may limit you to storing 110 gallons of water at a time.
Cattle Panel
| Supply | Quantity | Cost Per | Total |
| 4′ x 16′ Cattle Panel | 2.5 | $34.99 | $87.48 |
| Hardware | 1 | $30.00 | $30.00 |
| T-Posts | 6 | $5.93 | $35.58 |
| $153.06 |
Lumber
| Lumber | Quantity | Cost Per | Total |
| 4″x4″ x 8′ Treated | 6 | $10.98 | $65.88 |
| 2″x12″ x 16′ Treated | 10 | $42.68 | $426.80 |
| $492.68 |
The cattle panel raised garden bed is going to cost you < 1/3 the cost of the lumber version and outlast it every time–this doesn’t even include the screws or nails you’ll use for the lumber version.
*This is not the total cost, as you will also add to lining and soil to both versions.
So let’s get started with building your cattle panel raised garden bed!
Supplies
* Scale to suit your desired bed dimensions, these can be configured in rectangles, squares, and circles. Generally a 2′ depth is recommended for most crops, although you can make it deeper to fully take advantage of Hugelkultur or to save on your back bending over. Try to stay under 4′ wide as this is a manageable distance for center growing crop retrieval (2ft from the outside). I’ll scale the supplies below to one of the 4ft x 16ft x 2ft beds we built at The Modern Frontier.
- Cattle Panels (4′ x 16′)
[2* You’ll have a section of 4’x12′ leftover for your next bed–you can easily make two round <4ft diameter beds with the remainder]
These will be the walls of our beds, if you cut these in half length-wise you will have 2′ deep beds. Scale to your desired bed dimensions and quantity of beds. [Utility Panel] - Galvanized Cable (3/32″) [100ft min]
Cable will wrap our beds on the upper and lower thirds to provide circumferential rigidity to hold in the soil as well as cross sections for increased strength. - Cable Ferrules or Cable Clamps [12 Junctions]
Used to attach the cable to itself and the hardware. - Turnbuckles [2]
For each circumferential wrap, we use these turnbuckles to tighten up the cable after fastening. - Bailing Wire [10ft min]
Used to attach panels to T-Posts and at corner junctions of the panels. - T-Posts [6]
For each corner and a midpoint on long sections–add more as needed for your bed dimensions. Should be placed every 4-8ft. - Hardware Cloth [4ft x 16ft]
Line the bottom of our bed to prevent burrowing beasts from digging into our bed from below. - Bed Liner / Weed Barrier [4ft x 56ft min]
A full interior (bottom and side) of weed barrier is used to hold in our soil, provide a moderate retention of water while still allowing drainage, prevent weed growth from below, and provide the all-essential air-soil interface. Don’t Skimp Here! I recommend getting the best available to you, it will last longer. - Good Quality Topsoil and Compost [128 cu ft | 4.75 cu yd]
You can either have this pre-mixed by your landscaping supply, or layer it together when filling the bed. Getting it delivered in bulk from a landscaping or garden supply is going to be significantly cheaper than buying bagged from your big box store–but if you’re only doing a small bed, bagged may be convenient for you. A ratio of 3:1 top soil to compost is a good mix for most applications. Many suppliers will sell by weight and this can be difficult to estimate the volume as it will be largely dependent on the water content–if your supplier sells by weight, provide your volume and ask for their recommendation. I recommend getting more than you think you’ll need, especially if having it delivered, as its better to have some leftover than have to pay for another delivery fee. - Yard Debris | Wood, Branches, & Twigs (oh my!)
If you plan to leverage Hugelkultur methodology–which is going to make your garden more water-efficient and allow for top-dressing (as opposed to having to till) your garden each year as wood underneath decomposes and compacts–you’ll need some wood of various sizes. I recommend a variety of sizes all the way from firewood sized pieces down through branches to twigs and leaves. You’ll want enough to cover your 16×4 bed 6-12″ deep for a 2′ deep bed (deeper beds can take a lot more wood and save you expensive topsoil volume–reserve 12-24″ at the top of the bed for solely soil and compost topping).
E X P L O R E: Hugelkultur.
How to Build a Cattle Panel Raised Garden Bed
- Cut Cattle Panels
Both Panels: Start by using either a cutoff disc on an angle grinder or a large pair of bolt cutters (after many times doing this, I found the bolt cutters easiest and quickest on the cattle panel) to lengthwise cut the cattle panel into two equal halves (each 2-2.5ft high by 16ft long). Count the squares if even square sizes (some panels have variegated sizes), mark your lines with a sharpie and cut.
Now that we have 4x 16ft panels ~2ft tall, set 2 of those aside–these will be the lengths of the garden bed.
Take one of the other two 16ft x 2ft panels, and cut two widths at 4ft–these will be the widths of your garden bed. You’ll be left with one 16ft x 2ft and one 4ft x 2ft section (you can also plan this so you’re left with with 2x 12ft x 2ft sections) of panel for making other beds. - Prepare the Bed Site
When we installed our first bed at The Modern Frontier, we didn’t level our site and had about a 6″ slope over the 4′ width of the bed–the bed handled it just fine and we had no problems, but I would recommend measuring out the 16’x4′ space, marking the corners with stakes, and leveling out the site as best as possible to promote even soil and water distribution and minimize leaning of the raised bed structure. - Assemble Cut Panels
Lay the panels into a rectangle on the prepared and leveled bed surface and use the cut ends of the panel which act as mini-stakes to push the panels into the ground and erect the raised bed. You can use zip ties here to fasten the corners together. - Lay Hardware Cloth
Cut the hardware cloth to a 16ft length and lay on the bed site under the assembled panels. - Drive T-Posts
Drive a t-post in each corner of the bed, as well as one at the midpoint of each 16ft section. Fasten the panels to the T-posts with bailing wire once driven, a few wraps around and then twist ends to secure with fence pliers. - Fasten Corners
Use bailing wire to secure panels at each corner–a few wraps around and then twist ends to secure with fence pliers–top, bottom, and middle. - Lay Weed Barrier / Bed Liner
Cut and lay weed barrier along the bottom, overlap edges by a few inches, and along the inside perimeter of the frame. You can lay some logs on the bottom to keep it in place in the wind and use zip ties punched through holes in the weed barrier to attach it to the frame wires along the perimeter. - Secure Cross Member Cables
Divide the long section equally to cut and secure 4 width-wise sections of galvanized 3/32″ cable–alternating upper third and lower third. This will provide width-wise strength and prevent the bed from bowing out. The span is 4ft, but cutting cable to 5ft lengths will give you enough play to loop the cable back on itself and secure. - Secure Perimeter Cable
Next we will be wrapping the entire perimeter with 2 sections of galvanized 3/32″ cable–one 6″ from the top and one 6″ from the bottom/ground. Start by attaching a 41ft section of cable to one end of a turnbuckle, weave the cable in and out a few times through the cattle panel as you wrap each side of the garden. When you come back to where you started, pull the cable as tightly as you can manage by hand and secure to the opposite end of the turnbuckle (ensuring the turnbuckle is fully open/expanded/of maximum length. Once secured, tighten the turnbuckle to cinch the cable down.
Repeat for the 2nd perimeter wrap. - Get Shoveling!
Your cattle panel raised garden bed is now fully assembled. Lookin’ good right? Now the heavy lifting comes in…
Layer in wood debris from larger on bottom to smaller on top–reserve 12-24″ of head space in the bed for soil.
Once your soil/compost is delivered, or you have your bagged soil on hand–fill your bed with soil to the top.
Tools | Enhance Your Arsenal
At The Modern Frontier we believe that if you can buy the tool for less than it takes to hire someone to do the job, you should. You’ll have it for the next project and do things right the first time, more easily and efficiently.
[ F U N C T I O N . F I R S T ]
