Which Is Better: Raised Beds or In-Ground Gardens?
My first vegetable garden was in the ground in a space I prepared with a rototiller. When I finally switched to a raised bed, it was like the difference between night and day.
Over the years, I converted to growing the majority of my herbs, fruits, and vegetables in raised beds. My Houston-based company, Rooted Garden, specializes in installing raised-bed kitchen gardens, and I teach my students about the many benefits of raised beds.
Before you go thinking I'm anti anything but raised beds, let me say that my in-ground pollinator garden was one of my favorite features of my Chicago kitchen garden. When I moved to Tennessee and had the chance to design a new kitchen garden from scratch, I created a 3ft-wide band of bed space around the perimeter of my kitchen garden and filled it with native plants and wildflowers. In-ground gardens are great for flowers, shrubs, and some edible crops (such as tubers and large melons).
In my experience, the biggest difference between raised-bed gardens and in-ground gardens is their purpose: the former is ideal for growing plants with delicate roots that are often picky about their soil composition and quality (i.e., most fruiting plants and vegetables), and the latter is ideal for growing everything else.
Let's explore the main differences between these two garden types so you can decide which suits you and the type of plants you're hoping to grow best.
But first, let's make sure we're on the same page about what these different garden types mean:
In-Ground Gardens
This type of garden is created by growing straight in the native soil or by modifying existing soil through tilling, amending, and adding organic matter such as compost. In-ground beds are a planting area distinct from the rest of the yard. For larger fruiting plants, in-ground gardens should be planted in a row-garden style.
Raised Beds
Raised beds are structures with four walls to contain soil and plants. While most raised beds have no bottom, some are enclosed so that you can add wheels or raise them off of the ground for greater mobility and accessibility. Raised beds with bottoms are technically containers, but we're going to include them here because they offer the same benefits as raised beds as long as they're deep enough to give the plants' roots plenty of room.
Raised Beds Are Typically More Expensive to Set Up Than In-Ground Gardens
Setting up an in-ground garden is less expensive than installing raised beds if you're able to plant right away. After all, your growing space is the ground you already have and your growing medium is, more or less, the native soil. While that means you'll need way fewer materials to create your in-ground garden, you will likely still need to rent or purchase some large tools to prepare the soil for planting and buy some soil amendments.
Expenses for In-Ground Garden Setup
To prepare an in-ground garden, you may need to purchase or rent the following:
- A rototiller to loosen the soil 6 to 12 inches down
- A sod cutter to remove grass
- Other machinery to clear and prepare the soil
- Weed barrier cloth or other weed suppressant
- A rake or hoe to level the soil
Expenses for Raised-Bed Garden Setup
Raised beds require you to purchase the material to contain the soil, the hardware to hold it all together, and a large amount of soil to fill the interior. If you're putting together more than one raised bed, the cost for those materials can add up quickly.
To build a raised bed, you'll need to purchase:
- Raised bed materials (e.g., cedar boards, bricks, steel siding, etc.)
- Bed hardware (e.g., framing angles, screws, washers, nuts)
- Sod cutter or other equipment to clear the space
Though it'll depend on the raised bed material you're using, you're likely going to spend at least $125 per bed. (I don't recommend purchasing cheap raised bed kits available online because they're often made of too-thin wood that will rot in a matter of years.) The hardware to assemble the material is typically upwards of $15.
You'll also need tools to build the bed. I assemble my raised beds using a simple construction technique that requires only a drill, a tape measure, and a bolt tightener. To avoid the need for a saw, have wooden boards cut at the hardware store.
To ensure your raised beds are easy to access and to increase the durability of wooden raised beds, I recommend setting your beds on some kind of garden path. (Learn more about different types of pathways.) I use gravel in all of my raised bed designs to help with drainage in the garden and to level the beds. Keep in mind that gravel or a substitute is another expense you should factor into your raised-bud budget if you're not putting your beds on concrete, brick, or stone.
Once your bed is installed, you'll need to fill it with soil. While you can use topsoil from your yard, I recommend generously amending it with compost and sand, if not starting fresh all together. (More on that in a bit.) You might be able to cut costs by ordering local soil and compost in bulk.
Depending on your building material, you may need to replace your raised beds over time. Steel will last decades and stone a lifetime, but wood will eventually degrade or rot.
While raised beds involve more up-front costs, I personally think that the increased productivity and convenience (don't worry—I'm getting to that!) make them a wise investment in your gardening experience. You can always add raised beds to your space in stages to spread out the costs a bit.
Raised Beds Require More Time to Install But Are Ready to Grow in Right Away
Whether you're installing an in-ground garden or raised beds, you'll need to perform the arduous tasks of removing all the grass and weeds growing there and leveling the area.
For an in-ground garden, you'll need heavy machinery or you'll need to put a lot of muscle into preparing the soil and removing any rocks and debris. It's best to then amend the soil with a few yards of compost. Otherwise, you'll spend two to three years building the soil by using cover crops in the off season and slowly adding humus to the top soil layer.
Setting up an in-ground garden can take a few hours to a few weeks, depending on the size of the space.
It also takes some time to build a raised bed and install soil, but the good news is that the bed is ready to grow in right away. Raised beds typically require a few hours to a few days to set up, depending on the size of the space.
Raised Beds Require Less Weeding and Help Defend Against Pests
Overall, raised beds require less annual upkeep than in-ground gardens. Each season, I simply clear the surface of any debris and add a fresh layer of compost. No tilling involved.
The other reason raised beds require less maintenance is largely because they can be set up to keep out both weeds and pests.
Raised Beds Prevent Weeds
Weeding has always been one of my least-favorite gardening tasks. I've found that raised beds significantly reduce the time I have to spend weeding. The fresh, weed-free soil inside a raised bed means no weed seeds are already present, and the tall walls of a raised bed act as a border to prevent weeds from creeping in. I lay gravel over my entire garden area and line the bottom of my raised beds with weed barrier cloth to prevent weeds from growing up underneath.
The wind will carry the occasional weed seed into my raised beds, but they are easy to take care of and often suppressed by the lush plant growth in the raised beds. (Check out this article on intensive planting to learn more about how you can plant your raised beds in a way that deters weed growth.)
Raised Beds Deter Pests
New gardens often become the hottest spot in town when it comes to pests of all sizes. Fortunately, there's something that serves as the bouncer at the entrance to prevent every pest from having unlimited access to your garden nightclub. It's the raised bed itself.
The height of a raised bed serves as an extra layer of defense against garden pests, including slugs, snails, and even rabbits. Other pests, such as birds, squirrels, and cats, can be deterred with the addition of a floating row cover or garden mesh (pictured below). These physical barriers are much easier to install in raised beds than on the ground.
If you live somewhere with pests that attack from below—such as gophers, moles, voles, and even armadillos—there's a simple solution to keep them out of raised beds: hardware cloth. Line the bottom of your raised beds with hardware cloth (in addition to weed barrier cloth), and these destructive little critters won't be able to dig up your veggies.
For those of you with dogs, you might find that your canine companion is the worst garden pest imaginable when it comes to an in-ground bed. I can't tell you how many tender young plants my dogs have trampled in my in-ground pollinator garden. (The same goes for my children when they were small.) Raised beds have the added benefit of preventing dogs, children, and careless adults from stepping on your veggies.
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Raised Beds Are Easier to Tend Than In-Ground Gardens
The ease of tending a raised bed comes down to two things: the added height and the simplicity of the tools required.
Raised Beds Are More Accessible
Tending plants that are growing in the ground can be hard and dirty work (especially if there's mud). While I love my in-ground pollinator garden, it's much more difficult to tend those plants and work the soil there than in my raised beds. (Fortunately, the plants growing in my pollinator garden are natives and wildflowers that don't need much from me.)
Thanks to my raised beds, the herbs, leafy greens, root crops, and fruiting plants growing there are level with my knees or hands, so I don't have to bend from the waist much to tend or harvest. If you have any kind of injury or disability, you'll find that even an extra foot or two of height can really make a difference in your ability to work in and enjoy the space.
Raised beds are also much easier for children to tend without stepping on things or falling over obstacles. For older gardeners, raised beds can save your knees and your back.
Two-foot-tall raised beds with trim on the top even serve as the perfect seating area while you're tending or planning out your next growing season in the garden (or just trying to capture a moment of peace and calm).
Comfort, ease, and overall accessibility are important factors to keep you coming out to tend and enjoy your garden regularly.
Raised Beds Don't Require Fancy Tools to Tend/Maintain
The soil in your raised beds will stay looser than your in-ground soil, which means you really don't need large tools to plant, perform maintenance, or remove spent plant material. You're good to go with a couple of simple hand tools, such as a hori hori, needle-nose pruners, a pair of larger pruners, and a hand rake. (Learn more about my favorite kitchen gardening tools.) Definitely no farming equipment required.
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Raised Beds Increase Your Garden's Overall Production
Productivity matters, even if your goal isn't to replace any of your grocery store trips with produce from your garden. Let's face it: if your garden is not an attractive, easy-to-access space that's also producing something you can tend or harvest continuously, you'll simply lose interest in being there. Our goal is to create a space that you want to visit every day.
Production in a raised bed increases due to better depth for roots, soil quality, drainage, and soil temperature.
Raised Beds Give Roots More Room
When they're growing in a raised bed, the tender roots of your vegetable plants have all the room they need to burrow deep and form a strong foundation for the plant. Giving roots more vertical room means you can fit more plants in a small space because their roots don't need to spread horizontally the way they would if they were planted in the ground.(Learn more about how deep your raised beds should be.)
In an in-ground garden, your plants' root growth can be limited by poor soil structure, poor soil quality, and large rocks. Their roots will spread out closer to the surface of the soil, which means you'll need to give plants plenty of space to sprawl.
Raised Beds Allow You to Start with the Best Soil
I've gardened in a lot of different places, but none of these locations had native soil that would keep vegetables happy and healthy. The soil in my yards has often been too rocky or filled with too much clay. I also can't guarantee that the soil hasn't been treated with herbicides or pesticides that I don't want my edible plants absorbing.
If I had wanted to grow fruit and vegetable plants in the ground, I would have spent several seasons amending the soil in the ground to get the right composition for growing vegetables (and that soil might still be filled with synthetic stuff I don't want to eat).
Unless you scoop up your native topsoil and it looks something like the picture below, it's probably not ideal for growing carrots, radishes, kale, tomatoes, peppers, or lettuce plants.
Most Kitchen Garden Plants Need a Soil Rich in Organic Matter
With a raised bed, you get to start with the best soil, leading to success in your garden much faster. You control the quality and texture and organic nature of what fills your raised beds. You can create the ideal sandy loam mix rich in organic matter that will absorb water, support roots, drain well, and ensure your plants thrive.
Most Flowers Will Thrive in Native Soil
Many flowers and shrubs, particularly native plants, are much less picky about the soil composition and quality than edible plants. Zinnias, coneflowers, black-eyed Susans, and many more flowers are perfectly happy growing in the ground—some even prefer poor soil.
Raised Beds Provide Better Drainage Than In-Ground Gardens
Raised beds filled with the right type of soil drain more quickly than in-ground beds. Many of the edible plants you might want to grow in a kitchen garden—cabbages, radishes, kale, peas, etc.—like to be watered frequently but hate to have their roots wet for too long. In-ground plants are more likely to sit in water because you have no control over the drainage, so you risk battling mold, rot, and mildew. Poor drainage can even just prevent your greens from flourishing.
In a raised bed, gravity works in our favor to keep those roots happy. In other words, the elevation of the bed itself facilitates faster draining. This is especially important to consider if you live in a wet climate. My kitchen garden design company, Rooted Garden, is located in Houston, Texas, where flooding is a major concern. Raised beds help to protect your plants during heavy rains.
If you're setting up an in-ground garden, be sure to select plants that thrive in wet or dry conditions, depending on your climate.
Raised Beds Warm Up Faster Than the Ground
Raised beds stay warmer than the soil in the ground. That's important when it comes to extending your growing time—think, planting earlier in the spring and continuing later into the fall or even winter.
This really made a difference when I lived in Chicago. If I shoveled snow off each bed, then I could work the top 3 or 4 inches of soil enough to plant by late February. I couldn't even get a shovel past the first inch of snow in my in-ground garden until well into March.
Getting to plant earlier and longer in a raised bed means you get to grow so many more things throughout your seasons. You could be harvesting your first leaves in the spring while your neighbors are still waiting for the ground to thaw.
Raised Beds Are More Versatile/Movable Than In-Ground Gardens
Raised beds can be placed on apartment balconies, patios, and rooftop decks. Your garden's location is, therefore, not limited by where you already have grass or soil. You can even build your own moveable raised bed by installing casters to a steel bed with a closed bottom. If you can roll your raised bed, then you can easily adapt the lighting situation based on your plants' needs. You definitely can't do that with plants stuck in the ground!
When you're choosing a location for an in-ground garden, you're limited to a location that has both available soil and decent sunlight.
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Raised Beds Are Beautiful Structures Even When Nothing's Growing
Even without plants, raised beds are a beautiful fixture in your landscape in their own right. In Chicago, I could see my raised beds and beautiful arch trellises even in the middle of the winter, when my in-ground pollinator garden was buried under snow. I used corten steel raised beds (available in the Gardenary shop) in different heights and sizes to create a unique and visually appealing design for my new Nashville kitchen garden.
Plus, there's a raised bed material to fit every style of home (and personality), and it's often easier to keep raised beds looking neat and tidy than in-ground garden beds.
Don't get me wrong—I also love the beauty of my pollinator garden in bloom and how it helps to define my kitchen garden space as something separate from the rest of the landscape.
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You can create a beautiful space that you'll absolutely love in your yard whether you're planting in the ground or in raised beds. But, if you're looking to have lots of success growing fruiting plants and vegetables in a space that's as productive as it is visually appealing, I do recommend going with some raised beds. I'm confident you'll love your space as much as I do!
For more information on how to design and install raised beds and then fill them with the best soil and plants, grab a copy of my bookKitchen Garden Revival. Consider it your guide to setting up a modern and stylish vegetable garden.
For a little more hands-on guidance, search ourbusiness directoryfor a garden coach near you. A Gardenary-trained garden coach can come out to your space and help you grow in your unique climate.
We also have an online course called Kitchen Garden Academyto help you set up a DIY garden just like professional would. You'll find community support and tons of resources to help you get growing!
Thanks for helping me bring back the kitchen garden, no matter where you're growing!
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