Building vs Buying Cost Comparison
I’ve found a couple of great resources for building square foot gardens. Here are the price breakdowns, done as “apples to apples” as I could!
Vinyl Square Foot Gardens
6″ high (single rail) NO SOIL
| Dimensions | Home Gardens To Go Website | Square Foot Gardening Website | Homemade w/ Home Depot |
| 2×4 | $69.00 | $60.00 | $49.00* |
| 4×4 | $99.00 | $85.00 | $50.00 |
| 4×8 | $159.00 | $165.00 | $82.00 |
6″ high (single rail) WITH SOIL
| Dimensions | Home Gardens To Go Website | Square Foot Gardening Website | Homemade w/ Home Depot |
| 2×4 | $89.00 | $68.00 | $57.00* |
| 4×4 | $149.00 | 101.00 | $66.00 |
| 4×8 | $249.00 | 197.00 | $114.00 |
*no grid
6 inch (single vinyl rail) garden beds
10″ high (double rail) WITHOUT SOIL
| Dimensions | Home Gardens To Go Website | Square Foot Gardening Website | Homemade w/ Home Depot |
| 2×4 | $99.00 | N/A | $51.00* |
| 4×4 | $149.00 | N/A | $64.00 |
| 4×8 | $279.00 | N/A | $96.00 |
10″ high (double rail) WITH SOIL
| Dimensions | Home Gardens To Go Website | Square Foot Gardening Website | Homemade w/ Home Depot |
| 2×4 | N/A | N/A | $63.00* |
| 4×4 | $229.00 | N/A | $88.00 |
| 4×8 | $379.00 | N/A | $144.00 |
*no grid
10 inch (double vinyl rails) square foot garden boxes
All boxes come with:
- Garden Box
- Bottom or weed mat
- Grid (unless otherwise noted)
Homegardenstogo.com provides delivery and setup in parts of Utah, or will ship to you (prices not included above).
Squarefootgardening.com provides local pickup in parts of Utah, or will ship to you (prices not included above). The prices WITH SOIL assume you make your own Mel’s mix for $2 per cubic foot. Mel’s mix is available to order from the website. It costs $9.99 per 2 cu ft bag, local pickup only.
Homemade w/Home Depot is totally do it yourself! The prices include garden box materials from Home Depot, grids ordered from Homegardenstogo.com ($12), weed mat ordered from Squarefootgardening.com ($.50 per foot), home made Mel’s mix ($2/cu ft). Please note, these prices are for making one box, but the cost will go down if you can purchase the materials in quantity and avoid waste. This project requires tools not everyone would have, and could be done by someone with intermediate building skills.
Wood Square Foot Gardens
6″ high Pine, available on Squarefootgardening.com
| Dimensions | WITHOUT SOIL | WITH SOIL |
| 2×4 | $35.00 | $43.00 |
| 2×8 | $60.00 | $76.00 |
| 4×4 | $50.00 | $66.00 |
| 4×8 | $80.00 | $112.00 |
10″ high Douglas Fir, supplies from Home Depot
| Dimensions | WITHOUT SOIL | WITH SOIL |
| 2×4 | $20.00 | $32.00 |
| 2×8 | $30.00 | $54.00 |
| 4×4 | $24.00 | $48.00 |
| 4×8 | $33.00 | $81.00 |
10 inch Douglas Fir square foot garden box
All boxes come with:
- Garden Box
- Weed mat
- Grid (wooden grid with Pine, nylon string with Douglas Fir)
Squarefootgardening.com provides local pickup in parts of Utah, or will ship to you (prices not included above). The prices WITH SOIL assume you make your own Mel’s mix for $2 per cubic foot. Mel’s mix is available to order from the website. It costs $9.99 per 2 cu ft bag, local pickup only. The site also offers square foot garden boxes in several other types of wood.
Homemade w/Home Depot is totally do it yourself! The prices include wood from Home Depot, weed mat ordered from Squarefootgardening.com ($.50 per foot), home made Mel’s mix ($2/cu ft). This price includes $10 for brackets (optional), stain (optional), screws (you may have), and nylon kite string (you may have). It could cost more if you had to purchase every item, or less if you already have or choose not to use an item. I used the cheapest wood available, but Home Depot carries other types of wood that would work well. This project requires tools that most people would have (drill), and could be tackled by someone with minimal building skills.
Filed under: How To
Hi!
Another option is to have a vinyl fence company do it for you. I ordered 3 4×8 vinyl boxes (11 inches high- 2 stacked rails). Each box was $136.00 because I ordered 3.
HTHs
Katie
Katie,
Thanks for posting! I’m glad to have another idea of where to get them and the price. To compare it “apples to apples,” you would need to add $35.98 for grids (two of them), $4 for weed mat (8 feet), and $48 for Mel’s Mix (24 cubic feet). Total would be around $224.
Can you get nylon netting anywhere locally? I’ve never seen it at stores?
I’ve found it at the Home Depot. It’s about $4 for a 4×8 piece of it, but that can almost do 2 trellises. I will say, sometimes it’s there, sometimes it’s not. I usually find it outdoors hanging near tomato support items.
We just finished our beds and took a picture of them. Just to get an idea, we liked them and they were very inexpensive to put together. I posted them on my blog at overlyactive.blogspot.com
We made the trellis out of 10 ft conduit pipe.
It looks great! What did you use to connect the conduit?
Love your website! Thanks for sharing!
Lee Valley sells Trellis Netting. $9.50 USD or $10.50 CAD.
‘This soft woven nylon trellis netting has large, 7″ square openings so you can reach through it for easy tending and harvesting. At 56″ wide and 175″ long, it can easily be cut to size and is perfect for growing many types of plants vertically, allowing you to grow a great deal more in a limited area.’
http://www.leevalley.com/garden/page.aspx?c=2&p=51218&cat=2,33286&ap=1