About Us
Contact Info
Garden Circles
2330 Dancing Wind Road SW
Suite 2
Pine River, MN 56474
Garden Circle Hotline: (218) 851-7022 (available 8-5 Central Time)
General: info@gardencircledesigns.com
Sales: sales@gardencircledesigns.com
You can learn more about our parent company at www.hugllc.com
When I decided I wanted to garden, I knew I wanted raised beds. I wanted the deep black soil and I wanted it high enough I didn't have to bend over to plant and to weed. When I started shopping, I could only cringe at how much they cost. I'm a handy guy with power tools, so I looked at making my own out of wood. I didn't want to grow food in chemically-treated wood, so I priced cedar. I found that each of the wood-framed beds would cost hundreds of dollars to make.
Eventually, I found inspiration in nature. Round shapes are all over nature, from atoms to water drops to planets. Round is the most efficient shape for containing a volume. After a few years of ever-improving designs, I ended up at a practical and extremely cost-effective way to make my raised beds. The resulting garden impressed my family and friends so much that they encouraged me to make Garden Circles so that others could enjoy the same success.
So, here they are: Practical, inexpensive raised-bed garden frames for the gardener who wants a flourishing garden without the back aches and sore knees.
- Ryan Hunt, Garden Circle Inventor
The garden beds sold here are the result of our engineers getting inspired to be more resilient by growing more of their own food.
For the last 15 years, Hunt Utilities Group has been developing solutions for sustainability in central Minnesota. Our 60 acre Resilient Living Research Campus hosts a permaculture demonstration garden, several ultra-high performance buildings, a solar panel manufacturer, and an advanced prototyping and fabrication facility.
History of Round Garden Beds
When Ryan decided to put in a garden, he knew he wanted raised beds. He quickly found out he didn't want to pay as much as they seemed to cost. Wood is expensive, especially if you buy cedar because you don't want to use treated wood in garden beds you grow food in. Thermally modified wood is a great chemical free alternative for rot resistant wood, but it is also not cheap if you want to build several garden beds.
So we started looking for a more efficient way to make a raised bed garden and we found inspiration in nature. Almost everything in nature is round - from blood cells to the cross section of trees. The circle is nature's most perfect shape; it's the most efficient way to contain a volume. Why not make garden beds round?
First Generation Prototypes
We started out using wide mesh fence, plus chicken wire and holding them all in place with wooden stakes. It worked and we have grown a lot of good veggies in them, but they could bear a lot of improvements.
Second Generation
Next, we went for something more upscale. These high class wooden garden beds are made from thermowood - heat treated for rot resistance - and have a look a lot like old barrels. They are the premium version, and, unfortunately, they have to be priced that way.
Third Generation Products
What we are offering, now, is the next generation of raised garden beds. We went back to our original goal of making inexpensive raised beds that an average gardener can afford. We still have the beautiful wood garden beds, but we also have a couple lines that are utilitarian and practical. All of them fit our mission to develop products that promote Resilient Living.