Raised beds to hold back floods?

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dawnsharon2001 New York, NY(Zone 7a) Apr 28, 2004

Hi, folks. I'm pretty new here, but you guys have been very helpful. I need advice on installing a new raised bed that needs to keep out water when it rains, at least enough that I can plant ordinary (non-wetland) shade plants in it.

I'm gardening in a place that gets flooded -- most of the yard ends up under a couple of inches to half a foot of water -- for a day or two after each heavy rain. I've been planting on the dry land portions and building them out as haphazard terraces and raised beds. Finally I bought a cedar raised bed, four walls, 11" high, 3' by 5', and DH assembled it into a big rectangle of wood. I now have three problems:

1) The ground where I want to install the bed slopes up almost a foot between the front and the back of the bed. I thought I would dig to even it out, or just bury the back of the rectangle deeper than the front, but it looks like a lot of work. The easiest way to level it would be to raise the level of the earth at the front of the bed, but:

2) The front of the bed will sometimes be holding back as much as six inches of water. So I can't just build up the earth at the front of the bed and then set the cedar rectangle on top of it, because the water will eat away the ground under the cedar and flood my garden from the bottom up. So I'm thinking about cement blocks or bricks under the lumber at the front, and maybe plastic landscaping edging for any gaps.

3) The question of drainage is confusing me. Do people normally use sand or gravel at the bottom of their raised beds for drainage? If so, will I find it works in reverse after it rains -- that is, water drains off the rest of the garden by seeping into the sand or gravel under my raised bed?

Thoughts? Has anyone here carved out a raised-bed garden from a watery lawn?

Thanks,
Dawn

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