Rebuilding old raised beds

[b54red]

After nearly forty years using the same timbers for my raised beds they are getting to the point where some of the beds have to be redone. I rebuilt the worst bed in February and it wasn't a lot of trouble as I got very straight treated 2 X 10s and built it immediately. The one I finished about 30 minutes ago was a real bear. I got the lumber 3 weeks ago and laid those nice straight boards out just before the two weeks of rain started. Well by the time everything dried out enough for me to start working on it a couple of days ago some of those boards warped like crazy. When I set them up end to end it looked like a snake so I had a hard time bracing and prying the boards into a semblance of straight. So some good advice for anyone building any long raised beds would be to start with straight timbers and build it quickly bracing every 5 to 6 feet and then fill it as soon as possible to help keep it straight and limit the amount of warping. Over the next year or so I will have to redo all my other beds as the wood is really starting to breakdown. That is six more beds to rebuild but at least I have the longest one done and it doesn't look too bad. This would have been much easier to do when I was younger.

Bill