About two years is all I got out of many of these self built raised garden beds. The screws seem to have failed, breaking apart making the beds collapse. Maybe bolts and metal brackets would have been a better way of building these. Oh well. I will try to fix those that still stand, and the rest I will break down into materials.
I have been noticing some of the beds are falling apart in my fenced in garden. I think the beds were built too tall using the hardware installed. Some of them can be saved, others I think I am better off breaking them down into smaller beds or completely disassembling the broken ones.
Once they fall like this its hard to do much to get them back up, but there are a few that are just starting to fall apart. Which can maybe be fixed with some hardware. But for those that have fallen I just remove the wood.
Even the short beds have had trouble, the one that had fencing on it seemed to get pulled over. Probably should have driven in t-posts for added support. Hopefully I can do that to the others before they fall as well.
Screws do not like to be pulled, and the constant force broke many of them. Even though they were 3 inch screws they were not strong enough to handle the dirt in the beds over time. Building beds using metal paneling and larger bolts may be the way to go.
A closer look at the wood screws that broke.. Looks like they got pulled until they broke. Screws do not have much strength in this direction so I can see how this was the weak point.
Ones like above can probably be fixed with a bracket.
Some have their entire side falling out, trying to push the dirt back in does not always work well. So I may need to tear this one down too. Many of them started falling apart as I added more dirt to them, I found a lot of settling occuring in the beds. Making the soil drop by over half, so when I added more dirt the screws started breaking.. Too much weight I guess pushing on the sides. Dirt is heavy...
At least the dirt inside looks really good. And glad to see the non-pressure treated / non painted wood has held up.. Seems the screws are the weak link in this design.
So these beds lasted about 2 years, give or take.. I think a few of them will last another year or two. But most of the tall ones are starting to really fall apart now. Doubt I will do raised beds again here, probably just going to tear them down, till the ground and plant directly into the mounds left from beds. I hope erosion will not become an issue without any beds though, as the garden is built on a slope. But I can always adjust for that later adding supports. But if I leave the beds its quite hard to till the area, so I think I am going to remove them completely as they break.
