As a contractor, I am fully capable of building raised beds from wood or corrugated metal available from lumber stores. But after reviewing the Vego planters, I quickly realized that I could not build planters from scratch nearly as cheaply or quickly as buying the Vego planters. They were easy to assemble and put in place. We installed five planters and had them irrigated and ready to go in one day. I would highly reccommend that anyone skip trying to make planters from scratch, you will save time and money with Vego.