DIY Raised Garden Beds

I'm all about using what you have to create new things.

These DIY raised garden beds utilize that philosophy perfectly.  They're made from materials salvaged during our home remodel.


With minimal tools & absolutely no cutting, they are the perfect beginner project!




These DIY raised garden beds are ridiculously easy to make!  There's absolutely no cutting required, either!

You won't believe what these garden beds are made from!


When we did our huge home renovation last year, we changed out the railings in our loft area.  Because I love all things salvage, I kept the railing balusters.  I just knew there had to be a way to reuse them!  It took a year, but I finally figured it out.  I was going to use them to make raised garden beds!

Here’s some pictures of the railings in our home before the remodel with the old balusters:

(You can see the final railing reveal here)

Now, railing balusters come in different cuts.  The ones I had were beveled 2-end balusters.  With the balusters being cut at both ends, it meant my raised bed would only come together in a square.  By using different balusters, you could definitely extend the size of your garden bed!
What makes balusters really awesome is that they’re easy to maneuver!  They’re only 42 inches, which makes them easy to transport!  Although I had these balusters on hand, I would definitely make garden beds out of them again.  We only have an SUV, so it can be tough to haul larger items.  With these balusters, I wouldn’t have to worry about fitting them in our SUV!
Here’s what you need for these project:

- 16 Pressure-Treated Beveled 2-End Balusters
- Hammer & Nails (or nail gun)

Lets get started!

First, I made the layout of my garden beds.

I made 2 raised garden beds.  I ended up using 16 balusters for each bed, meaning 4 balusters per side.

Once everything was laid out, it was time to construct the beds.  My husband used his nail gun to nail everything together.   We put each square together individually & nailed the corners.  Once each square was together, we nailed the rows to each other.




Once everything was nailed together, I painted the beds with some concrete paint that was left over from painting our basement.  The paint was super thick & it adhered to the balusters like a dream.  I only used this because it’s what I had on hand.  I would recommend using a paint specifically made for wood surfaces to prevent rot.

And here’s the final results:


// Update //

We used these raised beds for first year of our gardening adventure.

We put plastic at the bottom before we added the dirt to prevent weeds from forming.  For the dirt mixture, we used topsoil & a compost/manure mixture.

I honestly think it was our best garden to date!  I think we had a good soil mixture that year & that helped a lot!  The only problem we ran into was the plants started to overcrowd the beds by the end of the year.