How to Make a Round Raised Garden Bed

This DIY round raised garden bed is an easy and affordable project that’s a perfect addition to any garden.

Continued from Epic DIY Raised Garden Bed

Square garden beds are all well and good, but sometimes we want something a little more curvaceous!

While the main rectangular bed will do most of the heavy lifting when it comes to vegetables, I’m thinking these raised round beds in the middle will hold some flowers and maybe some fruits as well.

I had considered building just one round bed and then putting a table and chairs next to it, but then I wondered how often we’d actually be sitting out there and decided more soil would be a better option.

Now, a round raised garden bed is easy peasy if you’re making it from corrugated sheet metal, but it’s a little harder if you want a cedar or treated pine garden bed. You could do the barrel technique and bevel the edges of each slat at some obscure angle and then fit them all together with a cooper’s ring. But that’s a huge pain in the butt involving lots of math and a table saw with a tilting blade. Just thinking about all those angles makes my head swim.

Or you could do it my way…the easy way! No angles, no bevels, just boards and a screwdriver.

Round Raised Garden Bed VIDEO Tutorial

Watch our short and fun video below for an overview of our round garden beds before you read the detailed step-by-step tutorial.

Before building the round raised beds, I first covered the interior space of my rectangle beds with weed barrier.

It was a hot and steamy morning. Normally I’d be in shorts, but after rolling out this weed cloth, I drove Handan to work in Destin so I could do some shopping at Home Depot and Lowe’s. Everything is 45 minutes away where we live.

As always, Penny was a tremendous help. She immediately found the hottest spot to warm her old bones.

Later that day I hammered in a bunch of landscape staples to keep the barrier in place.

DIY Round Raised Garden Beds Tutorial

Now for the fun part! The key to making easy round raised garden beds is galvanized pipe strap!

I cut 19 two-foot pieces of treated pine and laid them side-by-side. Then I unrolled the pipe strap along one side of the boards and screwed it in two places to each board.

The key is to make sure the boards are butted tightly against one another and to screw as close to the board edges as possible. In the picture above, I’m not screwing close enough to the edges. I only discovered this when I tried to assemble the ring and discovered my error. I laid it back down and re-screwed the strap so that each screw was as close to the edges as I could make them.

I left about 6 inches of strap hanging over the end. This will be used later to secure the ring.

Since these fence pickets are only 3/4 inch thick, I had to find a suitable screw that was short enough but would weather the elements. I ended up buying a box of 3/4 inch brass screws from Home Depot. With the additional thickness of the galvanized pipe strap, the screws don’t pierce through the pine.

Who says you can’t lounge around while working? I make DIY look good! 😂

I tilted the strapped boards up…

…and formed them into a ring.

Then I hauled my carcass inside and screwed the two ends together with the two pieces of overhanging strapping.

I picked it up to move it and felt a little like that man from Nantucket…

Egg-shaped bed, anyone?

Easily fixed!

Two is always better than one!

I could have left it like this – these round raised beds are strong, and they’ll be stronger still once filled. But I wanted them to be hurricane proof!

Pepper seems suspicious, but she’ll come around.

Just a few more gratuitous model shots…

So far, so good, but let’s beef up those round beds!

I cut cedar boards slightly shorter and a little narrower and screwed them between the outer boards. You can use treated pine if the beds will be used for flowers.

This not only strengthens the bed, but it also hides the gaps.

I stained all the treated pine slats with Cabot Heartwood deck stain. I left the inner cedar boards alone – they have their own natural protection.

It’s a rich and beautiful cedar-toned stain.

The sun was setting, so I let the stain dry overnight before painting the posts.

The next day, I primed the posts with exterior primer, and then I painted them with Sherwin Williams Tricorn. It’s their blackest black, and it really makes the cedar tones pop!

So far, so good. I think it looks amazing already, but the best is yet to come!

Check out the Epic Raised Garden Bed Reveal!