Hi Vivacity,
Mel describes how to make a raised bed in his book, too. Ours are made of scaffolding planks, and other bits of recycled wood - whatever scrap we've been able to get hold of and recycle. although our original 2 square foot beds are exactly to Mel's design, and cost much more than the scrap wood ones because we dutifully followed his instructions to the letter
Nowadays we're much more 'Oh, that'll do.' And 'Is it cheap or free? Great, we'll do it that way!' We even built a temporary raised beds out of spare straw bales that we had lying around once. It worked really well, too. We use straw as mulch, to cover the dirt paths between the raised beds, and for our hens and rabbits. So we've always got plenty around.
