Grobox Garden Raised Bed Review

If you’ve been thinking about investing in a metal raised bed for your garden, you’ll definitely want to check out this review on Grobox Garden. We’re continuously testing out products to provide you with the best options for your garden so that you don’t spend your hard earned money in the wrong place! In this article I’ll take you through which Grobox gardens we own, who Grobox is, my experience building the gardens, the cost of these raised beds and my overall thoughts.

This review is part of a paid promotion. However, all of the opinions in this article are our honest review of the product as we work to provide you with the best possible advice on products that work for you and your garden.

Our Grobox Gardens at a Glance

Purchase our Grobox Garden 9-in-1 garden kit here

Who is Grobox Garden Raised Beds

Grobox Garden is a Canadian company that specializes in bottomless raised gardens made from ZAM (Zinc, Aluminum, Magnesium) Steel and is painted with food-grade, CFIA-certified paint from AkzoNobel. All of the hardware included in the kit is made from 100% stainless steel. The gardens are expected to last up to 20 years through our Canadian winters and summers and are meant to be 100% recyclable when the time comes to replace them.

What I love about Grobox Garden is that they’re a woman owned, and largely woman-operated business. We love to support women owned businesses since that’s who we are here at Urban Gardening Canada as well! As a mostly family-run business, they focus heavily on giving back to their community through community garden and school garden projects through their GiveBack Program.

Building the Grobox Garden

Both of my gardens arrived in perfect condition. The boxes are nicely labeled, they’re packed really well and there was no damage on arrival – which is impressive considering the boxes are heavy. Each garden kit comes with panels, the hardware, an instruction manual, tension rods and a rubber edging to install at the top of the garden.

After taking inventory of all of the pieces, the first step was to remove the plastic film on each of the panels. This is always the part I hate the most with metal raised beds. If you’ve seen any of my other reviews you’ll know how much I dislike this process. What I’ve learned while building the gardens is that the plastic is way easier to remove from the 17″ garden, while the 32″ is a lot more cumbersome. I was excited to see though that Grobox only has plastic film on the outside coloured portion of the garden, and didn’t cover the inside (since it isn’t necessary to). This made removing the plastic a lot faster and cut the waste in half. The plastic film is put on there to protect the colour coating from being scratched but I’ll always feel a certain way about the plastic waste on a product that’s meant to be 100% recyclable at the end of their life.

The next step was to put the panels together in the configuration chosen. This was really simple to do, and can be done by one person. You don’t need any building skills to put the garden together and it doesn’t take much time to complete, plus all of the tools are included with the garden. What I like about the Grobox Garden is that they have 6 bolts per panel on the 17″ garden, so you don’t have to worry about the garden soil separating the panels.

With the 32″ garden, the most difficult part building it alone was being able to reach the bottom of the panel to install the bolts and nuts, while holding the panels together. The 32″ garden would be easier with two people, but it is possible to do it alone, especially if you lay the panels on a table. Just be careful not to scratch your work surface with the metal corners, or to scratch the panels with the edge of another panel.

Once all the panels are installed, it’s time to install the tension rod. This is where Grobox Garden sets themselves apart from their competitors. They offer more tension rods than other metal raised bed companies do on the 32″ garden. They received feedback from their customers that more tension rods were needed so they made sure that each garden bed has more included in the kit, to provide a sturdier garden. I love a company that listens to customer feedback and acts on it.

Finally, the rubber edging gets installed. It was quite easy to add, however it does take some force to install it around the panels and corners where the overlap is. It’s easiest to start installing the rubber in the centre of a panel so that it’s already in place when you reach the overlapped panels.

Building the gardens is the easiest part and takes the least amount of time. And that’s where metal raised beds excel – no special skills required. The real work comes when you start filling the gardens.

Check out these related articles:

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• Vego Garden Raised Bed Review
• 6 Reasons to Not Buy a Metal Raised Garden Bed

Raised Bed Options for Your Garden

Grobox Gardens offers a range of gardens with different shapes, heights and colours.

Along with their 9-in-1 customizable garden, you can also get a round garden, an L-shape and even a U-shape garden (my favourite shape, it feels so immersive!). They offer three heights to choose from, although not all shapes come in all heights. You’ll have to decide which is the most important – height, or shape. The heights they offer are 11″, 17″ and 32″.

Finally, the gardens come in three different colours: cream, sage and grey. We chose the grey colour because we liked the idea of the dark grey contrasting the green plants. We now own metal raised beds in all three of those colours, and I must say, the grey is definitely my favourite.

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How much does a Grobox Garden cost?

When budgeting, make sure to include the cost of both the garden bed and the soil required to fill it.

The Gardens

Grobox Gardens range in price from $159 to $859. The average price is from $285-$465 dollars.

The soil

These gardens are bottomless, which means they must be filled completely. When budgeting for your garden, it’s important to look at the capacity of the garden to understand the cost to fill the raised bed.

For example, the 32″ garden in the 6’x3.5′ configuration holds approximately 2 cubic yards of soil. That’s a lot of soil! To help with the cost of soil, we recommend filling the garden with branches and trunks, like the Hugelkultur method. I didn’t add any cardboard to the bottom of the garden because it isn’t necessary. And I absolutely do not recommend putting weed barrier or landscape fabric on the bottom, since those are made of plastic and will leach chemicals in your soil. If you’re worried about critters (like voles) getting into your garden from below, you can use hardware cloth/chicken wire at the bottom, but keep in mind it can’t be larger than 1/4″ holes.

Be mindful, as the branches break down, the soil will settle over the season and winter, so you’ll have to top up the soil in the garden the following season. I consider the soil settling to be a good thing since you should be amending your soil every season as part of a healthy soil management.

Overall experience using the Grobox raised garden

My favourite thing about my Grobox gardens is the colour. I love the grey. I didn’t expect to like it so much but it adds a lot of oomph in the garden. Also, the fact that Grobox changed their gardens to include more tension rods because of customer feedback shows that the company is receptive to its customers and wants to make sure they provide a high quality experience to you.

My one complaint is that I found the colour to scratch off the gardens, especially where the two panels meet. The edges of the panels are quite sharp so as you connect them they can leave small scratches on the panel beside it. It isn’t super noticeable, and it might be more pronounced because the gardens are such a dark colour but I didn’t expect them to scratch during the build, otherwise I would have been a lot more cautious. I was also building them myself, and if I had help I doubt they would have scratched. Since this is my first year with them I don’t know how the scratches will hold up, so I’ll update this review as the seasons progress!

Is it worth the money?

As with all metal raised beds, the answer to this question depends on your garden goals.

Grobox is located on the West Coast of Canada and was created because their weather is consistently wet, meaning that wood raised beds rot faster. The owners saw the need for long lasting gardens and decided to create Grobox to meet those needs. Therefore, if you live in an area with high rainfall, or more humid weather, then metal is going to last you longer. The other benefit is that you don’t need any special tools or skillset in order to build these gardens. Whether you just prefer to grow in raised beds, or need it for accessibility, these gardens are going to allow you to have a raised garden with little building skills. The only skill you need is the ability to move a heavy box into your garden!

If you’re budget-conscious, or live in a dry area, then this may not be the right direction for you. There are other ways to grow a garden in a raised bed, such as building one out of wood. Amazon does have a selection of metal raised bed gardens for cheap prices, however I recommend only purchasing from a reputable company, such as Grobox. Grobox is CFIA Food Safe approved which means you can garden easy knowing that there are no chemicals in the garden that can poison your soil. It’s important to do your research before opting for the cheapest option, because it might come with a catch.

If you’re looking to add metal raised beds to your garden, and you want to support a family-run business that puts community first, I highly recommend Grobox Gardens!

Shop all Grobox Garden products here