A rot-resistant cedar bed you can build with eight cuts and a handful of screws.
Raised beds warm up earlier in spring, drain better, and save your back all season. We built ours from untreated cedar — naturally rot-resistant and safe to grow food beside — in a simple four-by-eight footprint that fits a standard bag layout of soil.
Eight cuts gave us the sides and corner posts; exterior structural screws pulled everything square. We lined the base with cardboard to smother the grass, then filled with a mix of topsoil, compost, and a little coarse sand for drainage. A level base keeps the walls from bowing once the soil is wet and heavy.
Expect around $120 in lumber and soil for this size. Scale the length to your yard, and add a second tier of boards if you want a deeper bed for root crops.