Hubby made the beds with pressure treated lumber and then added the soil to the area......he also dug down to the underneath before that.....FOR our tomato plants he put wooden boxed holders going up and the tomatoes were up in the air and not laying on the ground........He put up chicken wire for the cukes and trained them to spiral up.....easy to pick and they were always in front of our noses.......We had six boxed areas and the picking and growing was so easy. We did put some of the brown paper stuff so the weeds did not even grow thru too........We are the city farmers for sure. We stopped doing this last year as we had a new doggie that just ruined the garden areas.......We love our doggie though.....