How to Build a Raised Garden Bed with Railway Sleepers

If you've ever dreamt of having a thriving garden with minimal digging and maintenance, building a raised garden bed with railway sleepers is a great option. As a gardener, raised beds offer you the flexibility to grow plants across different soil types and even to tailor the soil within a bed to meet your plants' needs.

Raised beds are a classic staple of stunning and productive gardens like Huw Richards' or Monty Don's. If you follow these gardeners, you’ll also know that raised beds will provide extra drainage and help warm the soil so your growing season can start early. Lastly, a raised bed brings the garden to a height that is comfortable and accessible for working at. It also offers a place to sit and enjoy the garden.

While building a raised garden bed can be labour-intensive, the effort will pay off in seasons to come as you’ll have a canvas year-on-year for whatever you want to grow. The secret sauce? Using railway sleepers makes it extra simple, and adjusting your raised garden bed to the size and height you want is easy. You’ll just cut and stack.

Inspired to get started? Here’s our 4-step guide on how to build a raised garden bed with railway sleepers:

1. Plan Your Raised Bed Design

The great thing about raised garden beds is they give you creative freedom. If we can give you one piece of advice, it's to prioritise preparation and planning. An excellent garden job for a rainy day can be sitting down with a cuppa to plan your raised bed. While it might seem straightforward, planning is the best thing you can do to avoid complications later on.

Set your budget

Railway sleepers are perfect for smaller budgets as they don't require footings - their weight alone makes them stable. However, they'll limit you to rectangular or diagonal shapes.

While building a raised garden bed with railway sleepers is the focus of this post, here are some other options to consider depending on your budget and design:

• Sawn logs for an affordable, rustic, informal look - keep in mind these can be tricky to install as they're not uniform in size.
  

• Bricks or natural stone for larger budgets to create raised beds in any shape - while they're more complicated to install, these beds can last a lifetime.

Consider shape and layout

Grab a sheet of paper and sketch out your raised bed. Will it be the focal point of your garden, or is it a neat way to contain your borders? You might also have rows of smaller beds in mind or even diagonal frames if your plot is an irregular shape.

Depending on your approach to garden maintenance, don’t forget the area surrounding the raised bed. The last thing you want is to finish up and find you can’t squeeze a wheelbarrow, lawn mower or wheelchair through the spaces in between.

You can also consider height here too. If you love gardening, but have difficulties with mobility, designing high raised beds can be a thoughtful idea to keep your garden accessible now and in the future. As they’re so thick, railway sleepers layered up can be great places to sit and rest or even allow you to garden and enjoy your plants standing up.

How to Choose Your Raised Bed Location

You can build a raised garden bed anywhere, but a good rule of thumb in garden design is to choose an area with as much sunlight as possible. Your raised bed will need access to water, so it’s worth casting an eye up for overhanging trees that might block rainfall.

Raised beds add structure to your garden design as borders or focal points.

If you're in need of a helping hand, we got you! Give our friendly garden experts a call on +447578831404.

2. Source Your Raised Bed Materials

Now you have a plan, you can use it to calculate the materials you'll need. The beauty of building a raised garden bed with railway sleepers is simplicity. Railway sleepers are heavy, so if you’re going for a low bed, you could even position the sleepers without fixing them.

When choosing railway sleepers for your raised bed, you’ll have the choice between new and reclaimed wood. If your priority is a sustainable garden made from reused materials, you might well go with reclaimed sleepers. That said, new sleepers are easier to work with as they’re more uniform and more straightforward to align in place.

Many railway sleepers are available, from pressure-treated or tantalised softwood sleepers to untreated hardwood. You'll see hardwood sleepers made from dense oak that will typically last longer in your garden. Softwood, however, is often cheaper and lighter to lift - something you’ll appreciate when it’s time to get building!

To attach your raised bed sleepers, you’ll also need exterior timber screws at least a third longer than the thickness of your sleeper and in stainless steel if you’re working with hardwood. You may also want retaining stakes or angle brackets to strengthen a taller design.

Lastly, you’ll need soil. If you’re redesigning your garden, you might have leftover soil to reuse. An easy option is to source compost, topsoil or manure. Ideally, ensure any compost is peat-free for a more sustainable raised garden bed. You may also want gravel to help with drainage or landscaping fabric to line your raised bed for extra longevity.

Raised garden beds help to extend the growing season in allotments.

3. Build Your Raised Garden Bed

You have your plan and materials, so here’s the exciting part. Remember, railway sleepers are heavy, so you’ll need an extra person to help. Having installed many raised beds in our time, we recommend you get started with all the materials and tools on-site and ready.

First, clear and level the soil you’re building on (a spirit level comes in handy to check this.) Working at level ground is the best thing you can do from the outset to make building your raised bed easier and improve its visual appeal when finished. If your garden or allotment is on a slope, you can use slabs of paving, bricks or timber offcuts to help.

While buying railway sleepers in the sizes you need is most straightforward, you may need to cut your own. The best way to cut sleepers is with a circular saw for accuracy. Always wear safety goggles, gloves and a mask for this step as it can get very dusty! Sand down rough edges with a belt sander and treat cut edges with a wood preserver.

Next, lay your railway sleepers in place. If you’re building a simple raised bed, you can finish with this step. Otherwise, use timber screws to attach the railway sleepers where they overlap. Another option is to use angled brackets to secure your sleepers together at the corners.

And you’re done! Before you add your soil, you might want to add a layer of stones or gravel to the bottom of your raised bed to help with drainage. You can also staple in landscaping fabric as a barrier between the timber and the soil, but this is optional.

How to Build a High-Raised Garden Bed

You can make your raised bed taller by layering your railway sleepers on top of each other and fixing them with screws.

Here are a few tips to give your high-raised beds extra stability:

• Dig a small trench to submerge the first sleeper frame.

• Sink retaining stakes at each corner of your bed.

• Use angle brackets to fix the corners.

How to Build a Raised Garden Bed Against a Fence

You can place a raised bed anywhere in your garden, including along a fence. Rather than building your raised bed onto the fence, we’d suggest leaving a gap of about 16 inches between the bed and the fence. That way, you can continue to maintain your fence, allowing for regular cleaning, replacing boards, and waterproofing.

A final note on building your raised bed - it’s not for everyone. If the idea of fixing railway sleepers has you closing the curtains and wishing for winter, we can do all the heavy lifting of designing and building your raised bed.

You can stack railway sleepers to reach the right height for your raised bed.

4. Get Planting

If you love gardens as much as we do, this is probably the step you’ve been waiting for! You can choose from all kinds of plants for your raised bed, whether you’re going for a vegetable patch or planting flowers or even trees.

If you’re looking for inspiration, we love books like Veg In One Bed by Huw Richards and Brilliant & Wild: A Garden From Scratch in a Year by Lucy Bellamy.

How We Can Support

With thoughtful preparation and proper execution, a raised bed can be a stunning and practical addition to any garden. If you’re feeling inspired by all the possibilities for your raised bed, we are too! Hopefully this guide has given you a great starting point on how to build a raised garden bed with railway sleepers.

At this point, you may be thinking you’ll need extra help, whether it’s designing beds for your garden or the heavy lifting of building sleeper beds that last. At The Garden Guys, we can support you with professional garden design and landscaping, as well as maintenance of your raised beds and more - from general upkeep to soil health.

For a garden you’ll love every season, drop us a message to start your project. And for more expert tips and advice, check out our garden design blog, including topics such as '5 Professional Garden Maintenance Benefits'.