year will be our first year for organic gardening. We want to try raised beds. What is the best materials to build them out of? We have a nice size garden, does it matter what the diamentions are of the beds? Also what is thoughts about having compost site right in the garden? Thank you for imput!!

Allow me to pipe in, being somewhat qualified on the subject.

Best materials? Rocks! Often free, look good, last forever. Build up a wall structure to about 24" high, pack in soil as you build the walls, plant herbs in between the cracks so that the root structure will provide soil stability. Cementing the rocks in place is ok, it does not last depending on your climate.

Other materials: Lumber, untreated, not preserved, not PT. Cedar, Redwood etc. contain oils that retard decay - but may be costly. Make a trench, fill with small rocks/gravel for critically important drainage and build up 4x4's.

There are loads of links on raised bed gardens on our Links page, as well as tips on orienting, site prep, etc. Hope that they are useful to you!

John / Ecologicals Gardens
http://www.ecologicalsgardens.com/

Build your raised beds out of whatever is handy
and cheap (as long as it's not chemically treated
wood) I have used old cement blocks, bricks,even pine slabs from a sawmill. Or just mound the soil
up and don't put anything around the beds until
you decide if your going to like raised beds.
As to dimensions, don't make anything bigger
than you can reach to the middle of! I make mine
about 30" wide by 8 feet long, simply because those dimensions work well in my garden. A compost site in the garden is the ONLY way to go!

Hi, Congratulations! Raised beds can be fun. My children are always excited when I make a new one. I do free standing beds, I make them any size I want and either leave them one more year or take them down and put them some place else. Rocks is another good way to do it, like John said. I also do trench composting on occasion, or dig deep holes where I may need the extra boost and bury it there, so by planting time there is good stuff already there. I hope this helps too good luck
Angelswings

Our garden is all raised beds -- built with 2"x8" rough hemlock planks. The wood lasts about 10 years. The three main beds are 4'x16', the three fence beds are 2'x20", a fourth fence bed is 4'x8' (this was actually the FIRST fence bed, and is too wide -- but you learn from your mistakes). Our smaller beds range from 30"x30" to 3'x5'. Except for the fence beds, which are 8" high, the free-standing beds are all 16" high, so I can sit on edges as I garden -- my arthritis makes it difficult to spend much time on my knees, even with a handled kneeler.

We've replaced the oldest two main beds, and will be replacing the third -- as soon as the snow melts. Two of the fence bed frames will need to be replaced soon, too -- hopefully we can get another year from them.

We have a small composter in the garden, and larger bins behind the shed. The small composter is handy to compost the thinnings, prunings and young weeds (nothing that has reached seeding stage), the old rhubarb leaves, and the carrot/parsnip/kohlrabi tops as they are harvested.

We mulch the transplants immediately (with hardwood shavings, old leaves and/or grass clippings from the lawn);the seedlings as soon as they are 5-6" tall. We tried hay mulch last year --aaaahhrrrrrggggghhhhh!!-- never again! Weed city! Plan to try straw mulch this year --

The best width usually is 4' (or whatever distance is convenient for you to reach halfway across the bed). The length is really up to you but 8' is a good length. Keep in mind that you must not walk on the soil inside the beds, so you want them short enough that you can walk around them to the other side easily. You could make them longer and put a couple of flagstones inside the bed halfway along the length to step on, though.
I've used raised beds for about 10 years or more. Where I live presently, it is vital to use them as my garden is situated near the base of a ridge, so I get a lot of underground water just beneath the surface of my heavy, poorly-draining clay soil. Several years of adding lots of organic matter has lightened the raised beds, and I have come to actually appreciate the high water table that I cursed before, as I never have to worry about supplemental watering even in the worst drought!
Inspired by Peter Chan's book, Better Vegetable Gardens the Chinese Way (probably out of print), most of those years I have not framed the beds in, just mounded them. I did this by laying out a guide with sticks and string, then, using a square-bladed spade, dig down the depth of the spade around the perimeter, tossing each shovelful into the bed area. At first I had trouble keeping the sides in place due to weathering, but found the solution on a visit to Rodale's Experimental Farm in PA: apply a thick mulch of straw, grass clippings, chopped leaves, etc., on the sides as well as around the plants.

This is getting long, so I will continue on a second post!

...continued:
One summer I found a source of used cypress boards, discarded from a mushroom farm. Cypress was used because it is an extremely rot-resistant wood. These untreated boards were used to form the growing beds at the farm, and from time to time as one end would rot somewhat, the entire 12-15' board would be replaced and the owner gave away the used lumber. What a windfall! We moved from that garden 6 years ago, though, so I am back to mounded beds since I am such a tightwad. I have found that rough-sawn hemlock from local Amish lumber mills make great affordable cold frames and compost bins! I "treat" the wood with a mixture of boiled linseed oil and paint thinner, from a recipe printed in OG some years ago as an alternative to pressure-treated wood. Works great!

When I had framed beds, I used woodchips over thick newspaper mulch on the paths as the boards kept the chips contained. I found woodchips were not convenient between unframed beds, however, they kept getting mixed in with the beds, so I stick with the other materials mentioned above. I have a pretty unlimited supply of free leaves, so mostly use those (always chopped with the mower or my blower/vac that I only use as a vac). Happy gardening! CK