Years ago, I discovered the M Brace raised bed builder by Art of the Garden. I think it was being advertised in Sunset Magazine, but can’t remember for sure. I purchased an M Brace set for my home garden. Out of the box, I was really impressed with the sturdiness and attractiveness of these steel raised bed braces, and was excited to be able to build a raised bed on my own with no tools!
Carrot Stake (Photo Courtesy of Art of the Garden)
I also really liked the designs– squiggles, carrot, bee, spiral, etc. The carrot, bee and sun would be adorable in a children’s garden. An offshoot from the carrot M Brace is the Carrot Stake, an adorable way to display seed packets and plant tags next to a plant in the garden. It’s actually what’s left over from cutting out the carrot in the M Brace. Clever re-purposing!
Now that I own a nursery, I knew I wanted to sell Art of the Garden products. We recently used my old M Brace to build a bed for our bare-root fruit trees at the nursery, and I placed an order for the shop soon after.
We put our raised bed together on a cold, rainy day when I and one other “non-handy” person was working. It was such a relief for us not to have to break out the power tools that day, and we felt rather accomplished after “building” our raised bed.
My M Brace was made from the old design. The height of the M Brace has since been reduced from 12″ to 10″ to better-accommodate 2×12’s. Check out how easy they are to use in the garden!
Art of the Garden has added new products to their lineup, including The HighRiser braces. At 20″ tall, the HighRiser allows you to build 22-24″ beds using commonly available 2″x12″s. This set does benefit from the addition of 10 deck screws per brace for reinforcement.
Art of The Garden products are U.S.-made, and the company is based in nearby Woodland, CA. They also make garden edging, a Mini M Brace, decorative suns, and a chicken deterrent. We’ll be setting up some demo beds at the nursery soon if you want to see them in action.
Angela
