Best Choice Products 6x3x2ft Outdoor Metal Raised Garden Bed, Deep Root Box Planter for Vegetables, Flowers, Herbs, and Succulents w/ 269 Gallon Capacity - Gray

I got the 6x3x2. I plan on ordering a second one right away. Plus we're gonna do two of the 8ft now on the other side. How much soil do you need? ALOT. Somewhere around 15x 40lb bags. So be prepared for that. This is not going to fill up easily. We're talking two feet deep and it's big. You can fill it with logs and shredded paper at the bottom layer if you don't have straw.Pros:Cheap but not too cheap(and yes, there is cheaper)Metal so it will never rotSturdy once you've got every screw in placeThe increased depth makes it possible to grow anything in itHolds a HUGE amount of crops by square foot gardening methodsLooks beautiful. Can't complain when it looks this good for sheet metal.Wing nuts makes this job easy, no socket required to hold the nuts.Rubber ribbing that fits the top comes with it if you want it installed, it's not on in my pictures. If you need to replace it, it's the same stuff used as ,"car door protector u shape rubber seal."Cons:Cheaper than the big brands that come with crazy angle brackets and crossmembers and riser blocks so there's not a tremendous amount of quality from this.The stakes that come with it are garbage. Get some round head plastic stakes and drive them into the peg holes on the corners or this thing is going to fly away out in a field if it's not densely filled.Layer your soil like pictured.1)Throw down cardboard, not plastic underneath this thing. Lots and lots of cardboard. Plastic will break down and turn into muck, you don't want that. Just use degradeable cardboards. If you ever have to remove this bed, you can just drag it all out. No picking up plastic pieces.2)Take round 2 inch logs or branches and layer them everywhere so this thing drains. Do not put soil on the bottom of this raised bed!!! The bed will shift and raise up above the soil line and look stupid with time.3)Add sticks, lots of sticks of all shapes and sizes or straw. If you don't have straw, use shredded paper mulch like I do. This creates an air layer that will break down with time but allows air and water travel at the start of an ecosystem.4)Add composted manure(it is way cheaper than bagged soil and has a nice sand mix to it, to fill this thing with topsoil would be quite alot of money)5)Add your own compost(the clumpier the better)6)Add garden soil7)Top with topsoil and vermiculite, pack it gently with a 2x4. Don't fill your bed with ,"potting," soil or the sides will collapse in wind or your plants will fall out from soft root systems, just the top layer should be topsoil. Spread mulch over this as your plants come up.(optional, some people like to see the topsoil)Tip, never empty this bed. You'll destroy whatever ecosystem you've built. If your soil looks dead then remove final crop of plants, remove one to two inches of soil and throw it into your compost. Replace that same depth with fresh soil. If you're using this as a raised bed for ferns and flowers, use your flower mix in place of garden soil. If you don't want to remove any soil in the future, use a powdered water soluble fertilizer and you're done.Raised beds are alot easier than digging ever was.

1 year update — these garden boxes have worked out very well. I have them on a slight slope and dug a bit in to the slope on the back side of each box to ensure each box is level. I currently have 7 of the 6’x3’x2’ boxes. I assembled them myself and moved them to the garden on my own. Not terribly difficult but an extra set of hands would have been helpful.The boxes feel a little flimsy upon being built but once they were places & filled, they were fine. I am careful not to lean on the edges of the boxes as they would surely bend. Also, the support bars are very lightweight and bend very easily, if you’re not careful.As a side note, I did not use the rubber edging/trim that comes w/each box. I can’t imagine it would stay in place & I saw no benefit.I placed my boxes in 2 rows, the rows and boxes are all 3’ apart & the spacing worked out very well. It was easy to maneuver around each of the boxes. I added a hog panel arched ‘trellis’ between the 2 rows of beds. I did not need to use t-posts to secure the hog panel as it is wedged between 2 of the garden boxes (end-to-end).As the boxes are a pretty good size, it took quite a lot to fill them & I followed the ‘lasagna’ method for filling w/cardboard on the bottom, then branches & twigs and leaves & lawn clippings. Then a layer of compost, more grass clippings and finally a mix of garden & top soil. Once planted, I kept the beds mulched all season long w/fresh layers of grass clippings.The boxes are open to the ground on the bottom & I had no issues with drainage. Also, the use of grass clippings as mulch helped minimize the amount of hand watering I needed to do (we did not use any chemicals on our lawn!). Initially, I used hay as mulch for a couple of my boxes & spent the entire season picking weeds from those beds (lesson learned)! The grass mulch definitely helped but I feel like I still watered a fair bit (south facing, full South Carolina sun).I made hoops from bamboo that I split & used 3 hoops per bed & covered them with netting held down w/garden staples to keep birds & other critters at bay. This worked great, even kept the deer out.I added a small compost container with a screw top lid (I cut off the bottom of the container & buried each container so the lid was at the top of the soil). Throughout the season, I added kitchen scraps… egg shells, fruit/veggie peels/skins, etc. to the containers but I think I’ll skip this step this coming season. I’ll continue to compost but will do so in my central compost setup and will amend the soil in the boxes w/compost, as needed.By the end of the growing season, I had experienced multiple inches of settling in each box, as a result of the breakdown of the components of my initial fill method. I expect I’ll add a few inches of a mix of compost, grass clippings/leaves and garden/top soil before planting my boxes this spring.I really do like these garden boxes a lot. They are functional & I am very happy with how they look & how they’re holding up. In fact, I plan to purchase one more box this spring, for a total of 8.

Overall, the bed looks nice. It came with a few scratches on the inside, but that was not an issue. My huge complaint is the protective plastic they applied. I purchased the 6x3 bed, and it took me over 3 hours to remove the protective plastic. I tried every way to remove it, horizontal, vertical, but neither worked any better than the other. The plastic was applied in sections, so if you were ever lucky enough to "get a run" on a piece, it would only go so far. Removal also left behind adhesive residue. I have another brand of raised bed and the plastic was all in one sheet and did not leave behind any residue. Unfortunately, that experience will factor into purchasing another Best Choice bed.Once you get past the frustration of the plastic removal, the bed itself is decent quality and is relatively easy to put together. More detailed instructions would be nice, but since I had another raised bed I knew what to do. My biggest concern is the material of the hardware (bolts and wingnuts.) It will be interesting how long they last.Would I purchase this bed again? Maybe, especially if the manufacturer addresses the protective plastic issue.