What to Plant in a Raised Garden Bed: A Complete Beginner's Guide

Raised beds provide the gardener control over the soil (after all, you get to choose what to fill it with), provide a solution to poorly drained locations, and can even be designed to minimize the frequent bending over and kneeling that comes with a traditional garden. A small one can be built and filled in an afternoon, providing an almost instant garden. 

What Can You Plant in a Raised Garden Bed?

The possibilities are endless! Most flowers, vegetables, herbs, and fruit found in a regular in-ground garden can be grown quite well in a raised bed. Pretty much the only limiting factor is space, i.e., for large, sprawling plants.

Almost every kind of plant will grow better in it for many reasons. The soil is loose and fluffy since you aren’t walking on it. You can target the necessary amendments where they are needed. The soil will warm up faster in the spring allowing you to plant earlier. The size and shape of the bed will make it simple to cover when cold nights threaten in the fall so you will be able to extend both ends of the growing season. You will have higher yields since you can plant intensively. Depending on the height of your bed, it will be easier to tend, reducing strain on your back and knees. 

When choosing what to grow, keep in mind the mature size of the plants and their growth habit. Are they upright and bushy, climbers, or sprawlers? Will deep roots have enough room? Think of your raised bed as though it were a large container and group plants that have similar water and sun requirements. 

Vegetables to plant in a raised garden bed

Every vegetable you’d grow in a traditional garden bed can do well in a raised bed, even root veggies. The first key to growing veggies in raised beds is the location—it needs to be as sunny as you can find. 

The second key is planning the heights of vegetables when you plant. Generally, taller plants should be planted on the north side or end, and shorter plants on the south. Otherwise, your tall tomatoes will shade out the shorter carrots.

In most regions, a two-crop system can be accomplished with a raised bed. Early or late crops are tucked in at the edges of the season, and heat-loving crops are grown in summer. They’ll overlap a bit, but that works out in your favor.

• Early crops: Spinach, radishes, and lettuce can occupy a raised bed as soon as the ground is workable. These crops like the cool weather of spring. A couple of weeks past your last spring frost date, plant your young tomatoes. By the time they grow to outcompete the early spring greens, those greens will be done.
• Mid-season crops: All your heat-seekers: tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, and more!
• Late crops: Start fall, cool-season growers like kale, lettuce, and even short-season carrots right under your tomatoes and peppers in late summer. The large but fading tomato plants will provide some respite from the occasional hot days of late summer and early fall and act as a nurse crop to get your fall veggies established. 

Favorite vegetables for raised beds

If you are eager to grow vegetables, here are a few easy-peasy ones that will thrive in your new garden. Plant the ones you like to eat!

• Beans: Bush beans will stay low, while pole beans will need something to climb. Pole beans seem more prolific, but bush beans start producing sooner, so why not grow some of each? Heirloom ‘Rattlesnake’ beans are remarkable. No matter how big the pods get, they still are crisp and tender and are delicious raw. They will quickly climb to the top of any trellis, so grow them on the north side of the bed so they don’t shade out other plants. For bush beans, go gourmet and try long, slender filet types such as ‘Maxibel’ or ‘Calima’.

• Carrots: When growing root crops, soil depth can be an issue. Carrots especially will appreciate a raised bed full of loose, well-draining soil—and with no rocks to get in the way, they can grow straight and long. There are many varieties ranging from chubby round ‘Oxheart’ and ‘Atlas’ to 10-inch-long ‘Sugarsnax’.
• Beets: This root veggie is a twofer, giving you not only a delicious root veg to eat but super-nutritious greens as well. Reliable ‘Detroit’ is an heirloom red, ‘Touchstone Gold’ is a sweet golden beet, and ‘Chiogga’ is an Italian heirloom that resembles a bull’s eye when cut.
• Radishes: These quick growers can be planted in spring for an early treat and again in late summer for a fall crop. Classic ‘French Breakfast’ is ready to pick in 21 days, or go for a mix of colors with ‘Easter Egg’, ready in 30 days. If your soil is extremely deep, try growing ‘Daikon’ radishes for fall. Planted in late summer, they can grow up to 18 inches long!
• Greens: Kale is a must-have for me, standing up to both summer heat and late fall frosts, but if you don’t like it, try Swiss chard. Multi-colored ‘Bright Lights’ is decorative enough to grow in a bed of flowers.

• Lettuce: Fast-growing and compact, lettuce is perfect for planting between slow growers. Plant loose leaf ‘Salad Bowl’, Bibb ‘Buttercrunch’, and for color, try ‘Red Romaine’ or ‘New Red Fire’.
• Peas: Snap peas are another spring crop to grow on a trellis, saving room in the raised bed for other plants. Since they don’t require shelling, you can eat them pod and all, giving you more bang for your buck! There is a range of sizes from 2-foot-tall ‘Sugar Sprint’ to 5-foot-tall ‘Super Sugar Snap’, but even the short ones benefit from some type of support.

• Cucumbers: Growing cukes on a fence not only saves room in the raised bed, but a;sp helps them to grow long and straight and makes them easier to pick. Try crispy little picklers such as ‘Calypso’ or a slicer like ‘Beit Alpha’ or ‘Diva’.
• Summer Squash and Zucchini: Bush types of these squashes fit well in a raised bed and mature quickly in 40 to 50 days. Give them plenty of room by planting them 2 to 3 feet apart. They are heavy feeders that appreciate rich soil, and a few plants will give you enough squash for an army! Pick when they are tender and small—about 4 to 6 inches long—for the best flavor. For something different, try ‘Benning’s Green Tint’, a bush patty pan squash.

• Peppers: Sweet or hot, peppers will appreciate the warm soil in your raised bed. Early ‘New Ace’ are prolific bell types, perfect for stuffing, and ‘Carmen’ produces huge red bull’s horn-type fruit, great for frying. Depending on the amount of heat you prefer, from mildly hot ‘Early Jalapeno’ to scorching ‘Thai Dragon’, there is a hot pepper for you. Think of the salsa and sauces you can make!  
• Tomatoes: The number one reason most people have a vegetable garden is to grow their own tomatoes. The experts at the University of NH remind us that each plant needs 18 inches of space in all directions, and 2 feet of room is even better for large indeterminate plants. There are hundreds of varieties to choose from, but it isn’t summer without cherry tomatoes, especially ‘Sungold’. A flavorful heirloom, ‘Black Krim’ is among the earliest slicing tomatoes to ripen in our raised bed garden. For sauce, giant ‘Opalka’ paste tomatoes are meaty and delicious.

Fruits that do well in raised beds

Small fruits like strawberries do especially well in a raised bed where you will have more control of soil quality, weeds can’t encroach upon them, and you can closely monitor the plants for optimum growth. 

• Strawberries are probably the easiest fruit to grow.  You’ll find fertilizing, mulching, and harvesting easier. Cut off wayward runners and use them to start a new bed for next year. The well-draining soil in the raised beds will help prevent rotting of the plant’s crowns. Cornell recommends using raised beds if you want to grow strawberries on wet sites and for ease of picking.

Many fruits are perennials, and typically, we wouldn’t plant a large perennial shrub or small tree in a raised bed. However:

• A raised bed devoted to raspberries or blackberries can keep these plants in check, make harvesting easier, and solve drainage or poor soil problems. Both can run amok in an open garden. By confining their roots to the raised bed, you can stay on top of pruning out last year’s canes and set up support for the new canes to grow on. Cutting back old canes, pruning, and picking are all easier in a neatly kept raised bed (and you can still tuck a few annual flowers along the edges).
• Blueberries are shallow-rooted and need acidic soil—so you can manage their bed differently from the rest of your garden to maintain the proper pH. The roots spread 3 to 4 feet wide and don’t compete well with weeds. In a raised bed, it will be easy to protect the roots with weed-suppressing mulch such as wood chips, bark, pine needles, or sawdust. 

Of course, annual fruits like watermelon and cantaloupe do well but are space hogs. Choose short vine or compact bushy varieties.

Herbs for raised garden beds

My favorite raised bed was a small square, about 2 feet on a side and 18 inches deep. I built a pair of them, one on either side of the stairs from the deck to the yard, and filled them with herbs. One had thyme, sage, oregano, and rosemary; the other had basil and mint. Fresh herbs for the kitchen only a few steps out the back door is magical.

• Mediterranean herbs are especially suited to raised bed gardening. Many of these perennials herbs—oregano, marjoram, thyme—can easily spread and take over a bed. Plus, they are all dry-loving herbs with the same soil requirements.
• Of course, mint is very well known as a spreader and is often best planted in a raised bed, planter, or container.
• Parsley and basil are better behaved, and we all know we need that basil for pesto!
• Cilantro and dill can self-sow if left to seed out, reappearing next spring.
• Try lavender as a perennial anchor plant in a raised bed, surrounded by other annual flowers that bloom earlier or later for color all season long. 

Flower combinations for raised garden beds

Don’t forget the flowers! Vegetables provide nourishment for the body, but flowers are food for the soul! Most types of annual flowering plants would excel in a raised bed where they have optimum growing conditions. 

A single raised bed of cut-and-come-again flowers can provide a fresh bouquet for the house every few days all summer long. 

• Dwarf sunflowers, zinnias, strawflowers, and celosia make a stunning raised bed of flowers, and all work well in the vase.
• Dahlias grow very well in deep raised beds. They are easy to plant and dig in the loose soil, the soil temperature warms earlier in a raised bed, and drainage is not a problem. Plus, you can custom-create a color palette for each raised bed, depending on your artistic desires.
• If rodents constantly tunnel under and eat your bulbs, line the bottom of a raised bed with hardware cloth before adding soil. Then, plant bulbs like tulips for early spring color. In spring, plant annuals and summer-flowering bulbs like calla lilies and gladiolas for blooms lasting the remainder of the year.

Raised Garden Bed Companion Planting

Interplant vegetables, herbs, and flowers in your garden! However, some combinations work better than others. Many herbs act as repellents, keeping bugs away, and flowers can attract pollinators. Some types of veggies supply additional nutrients to the soil or can provide a partner with shade. 

Our companion planting chart and guide will help. Here are a few ideas easily adapted to raised bed gardening.

• Basil is a wonderful herb for companion planting with tomatoes and peppers. While interplanting tomatoes and basil may reduce thrips and whitefly pressure, they also go well together in the kitchen.
• Planting flowers near your summer squashes, tomatoes, and peppers brings pollinating insects to buzz around and improve your yield. An unpollinated female flower doesn’t make a fruit. Tomatoes like marigolds and nasturtium as neighbors.
• A combination of arugula, mustard greens, and rapeseed can serve as a trap for flea beetles, so they leave the rest of your brassicas alone. 

Again, our companion planting chart lists ALL the great plant combinations.

What Not to Plant in a Raised Garden Bed

While almost anything can be planted in a raised bed, perhaps not everything should be. A giant pumpkin like ‘Dill’s Atlantic Giant’ is better off, space-wise, out in its own spot instead of taking up your entire raised bed. Winter squashes are notorious space hogs with extremely long vines and truly thrive on room to run. 

University of Minnesota Extension warns against planting trees and shrubs in a raised bed. Small fruit trees and shrubs need space to send roots not only downward but also outward, and of course, will occupy a raised bed for years or decades. Plant them out in the soil instead, and use a berm if drainage is problematic.  

Corn is wind-pollinated and prefers to be planted in large blocks. 

While root vegetables are perfectly fine in a deep raised bed, they will do poorly in a shallow bed. A raised bed built out of 2x6-foot boards (if only one board high) will only have about 4 inches of loose soil after it settles. Build a deeper bed, at least 12 inches, if potatoes, carrots, parsnips, or other root crops are on your to-grow list.

Other than that, with a little thought and planning, most food crops will excel in your new raised bed. 

Raised Garden Bed Tips

• Pay attention to location when starting a raised bed. It’s easy to build raised beds anywhere, but a veggie garden needs full sunshine.
• Don’t make it too wide. Raised beds should generally be 4 feet wide or narrower. You want to be able to reach the center for planting, weeding, and harvesting without stepping inside.
• Raised garden beds take a lot of soil to fill. For larger beds, having soil delivered by the yard is much more economical than buying dozens of bags. Fill the beds with good-quality screened topsoil and mix in compost to help with soil structure and pore space.
• Pay attention to soil moisture. Raised beds will drain more quickly than traditional garden beds. Check the soil an inch deep with your finger. If it feels dry, it’s time to water.
• Use mulch. Although weed pressure can be less with a raised bed, mulch will help keep the soil cool, moist, and loose.
• Fill your beds with the best quality soil you can afford. Poor soil negates many of the benefits of raised bed gardening.