Fine living: Build a better raised bed (coming soon to Sloat Garden Center)

Fine living: Build a better raised bed
PJ Bremier
Marin Independent Journal
Posted: 03/05/2010 09:27:59 PM PST


What do you do when you want a raised garden bed but you - and your husband - don't know the first thing about building one?

If you're Jill Plumb of Woodland, near Sacramento, you invent the M Brace, a no-muss, no-fuss, no-tools system of four slotted braces that easily accepts lumber up to 12 feet long.

Plumb, at Sloat Garden Center in Kentfield last week, said she got the idea for the M Brace while contemplating her dilemma - an easy way to install a raised garden bed - and happened to glimpse at her paper napkin holder.

She figured that four corner braces with a slot in the middle, like a napkin holder, would do the trick. She was right, and now she's selling them.

Her own 4-foot square M Brace raised bed has yielded quantities of broccoli, cauliflower, lettuces, green onions, brussels sprouts and herbs since October when she started her company.

"Raised beds are the most efficient and, frankly the most enjoyable way of growing vegetables," Plumb says, and she swears by heirloom vegetables. "I really recommend them. They have that wonderful flavor that many of the genetically altered ones don't. They're delicious. Our cauliflower tasted just like butter.

The M Brace is made in America of biodegradable recycled sheet metal, withstands snow, is portable and reusable, and sets up in minutes. It's available in a choice of eight simple laser-cut designs, including swirls, squiggles, dots, a sun and a carrot and is intended to rust over time, although a rust-inhibitor can be applied.

It will be available at various Sloat Garden Centers beginning in April for $165 a set. For more information, call 454-0262 or go to http://www.sloatgardens.com/ or http://artofthegarden.net.