6 Best Hardware Cloth Kits For Raised Beds That Stop Critters Below

There’s nothing more defeating than watching your perfect rows of carrots or a prized tomato plant suddenly get pulled underground, leaving nothing but a hole. You did everything right—amended the soil, watered consistently, and watched for pests on the leaves. But the attack came from below, silent and devastating. This is the reality for anyone gardening in an area with gophers, voles, or other burrowing critters.

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate, this site earns from qualifying purchases. Thank you!

Why Hardware Cloth is Essential for Raised Beds

Hardware cloth isn’t cloth at all; it’s a rigid mesh of galvanized steel wire. Think of it as a suit of armor for the bottom of your raised bed. Its primary job is to create an impenetrable physical barrier that stops burrowing animals from turning your rich garden soil into their personal buffet.

The main culprits are gophers and voles. Gophers are notorious for pulling entire plants down into their tunnels to eat the roots, while voles create shallow runways and girdle the stems of young plants. By lining the bottom of your bed, you completely block their upward access. It’s a one-time installation that provides permanent, passive protection for the life of your garden bed.

Many gardeners try traps, baits, or deterrents first, but these are ongoing battles that require constant effort and management. Hardware cloth is different. It’s a preventative measure, not a reactive one. You install it once during bed construction and you’re done, giving you peace of mind that your investment of soil, compost, and time is secure from below-ground threats.

Vego Garden Gopher Netting: Pre-Sized for Kits

If you’ve invested in a modular metal raised bed system like Vego Garden, their pre-sized gopher netting is the path of least resistance. These rolls are cut to the exact dimensions needed for their most popular bed configurations. This completely eliminates the tedious and often frustrating task of measuring and cutting a large, unwieldy roll of steel mesh.

The major benefit here is convenience. You don’t need tin snips, you won’t have sharp, wasted off-cuts, and the installation is foolproof. For hobby farmers with limited time, paying a small premium for a product that saves an hour of work and guarantees a perfect fit is a smart trade.

The obvious tradeoff is a lack of flexibility. This solution is purpose-built for a specific brand’s ecosystem. If you have custom-built wooden beds or a different brand, these pre-sized kits likely won’t fit, forcing you to look at bulk options instead.

Gardener’s Supply CritterGuard Bed Liners

Similar to the Vego Garden offering, Gardener’s Supply Company provides pre-sized liners designed to fit their own extensive line of raised beds and garden corners. As a long-standing and trusted name in gardening, their CritterGuard liners are a reliable choice for those already using their products. The liners are typically made from heavy-duty, rust-resistant galvanized steel.

This is another solution that prioritizes a seamless, integrated system. When you buy a bed and a liner from the same company, you can be confident they were designed to work together. This is especially helpful for oddly shaped beds, like L-shaped or tiered designs, where cutting and fitting a bulk roll of wire mesh would be particularly challenging.

Think of this as the "all-in-one" approach. It’s ideal for gardeners who are setting up several beds at once and want to minimize complexity. While you might save a few dollars going the DIY route, the time saved and the assurance of a perfect fit can easily justify the cost, especially on a larger project.

Yardgard Galvanized Cloth: A Heavy-Duty Choice

For the hobby farmer with numerous beds of varying or custom sizes, buying hardware cloth in a bulk roll is the most economical and flexible option. Yardgard is a widely available and trusted brand found at most hardware and farm supply stores. This is your workhorse solution for serious, large-scale protection.

When buying a bulk roll, you have critical decisions to make:

• Mesh Size: A 1/2-inch mesh is the standard for stopping gophers. However, if you also have a problem with smaller voles or mice, stepping down to a 1/4-inch mesh is a wise investment.
• Gauge: This refers to the thickness of the wire. A lower gauge number means a thicker, more durable wire. Look for 19-gauge or 23-gauge for a good balance of durability and workability.

The tradeoff for this cost-effectiveness and customization is labor. You will need a good pair of tin snips, heavy-duty gloves, and patience. Cutting hardware cloth creates dangerously sharp edges, and wrestling a 50-foot roll into place requires some muscle. This is the best choice for maximum coverage at the lowest price per square foot, provided you’re prepared for the hands-on work.

Amagabeli Wire Mesh for Custom Bed Sizes

Amagabeli is another key player in the bulk wire mesh market, often with a strong online presence. Their main advantage is the sheer variety of roll sizes, gauges, and mesh patterns available. This allows you to fine-tune your purchase to the specific needs of your project, potentially minimizing waste and the number of seams required.

For example, if you are building extra-wide 5-foot beds, finding a 60-inch-wide roll from a brand like Amagabeli means you can line the bottom with a single, seamless piece. This is far superior to trying to overlap two smaller pieces, which creates a potential weak point for a determined pest to exploit. This brand is for the planner who has measured twice and wants to buy once.

Like any bulk roll, this is a DIY-heavy solution. You are trading convenience for complete control over the final product. It’s the right call for unique projects, like lining the bottom of a large keyhole garden or a long, serpentine raised bed where pre-cut kits simply aren’t an option.

LandGuard Gopher Baskets for Individual Plants

Sometimes you don’t need to protect an entire 4×8 vegetable bed. Instead, you need to protect a single, high-value plant like a young fruit tree, a prized rose bush, or a collection of expensive bulbs. For this targeted application, pre-formed gopher baskets are the perfect tool.

These are essentially ready-made cages of wire mesh that you place directly into the planting hole. You set the basket, backfill with some soil, place your plant inside, and then fill the rest of the hole. This creates a protective barrier around the vulnerable root ball, which is the primary target for gophers.

This is a spot treatment, not a comprehensive solution for a vegetable garden. It’s ideal for integrating new perennial plants into an existing landscape where burrowing pests are a known issue. It’s also a great way to protect container plants that you sink into the ground for the winter.

Dig Defence Barrier for Perimeter Protection

Dig Defence offers a completely different strategy for pest exclusion. Instead of lining the bottom of the bed, this product creates a subterranean fence around the perimeter. It consists of multi-pronged steel rods that you drive into the ground along the outside edge of your raised bed, preventing animals from digging under the side walls.

This is an excellent solution for two specific scenarios. First, for existing raised beds where you don’t want to excavate all the soil to install a bottom liner. Second, it’s highly effective against animals that dig at the edges, like rabbits, skunks, and armadillos trying to get under a structure.

However, it is not a foolproof solution for gophers. A gopher can easily tunnel from deep underground and surface right in the middle of your bed, completely bypassing the perimeter fence. Think of Dig Defence as a great barrier for shallow diggers, but not a replacement for bottom-lining with hardware cloth if deep-tunneling gophers are your primary problem.

Installing Your Gopher Wire: Key Techniques

Proper installation is just as important as choosing the right product. A poorly installed barrier with gaps is no barrier at all. The goal is to create a complete, sealed "bowl" of wire mesh that contains your garden soil.

First and foremost, prioritize safety. The cut edges of hardware cloth are razor-sharp. Always wear thick leather or cut-resistant gloves and safety glasses. A tetanus shot is a good idea, too. When cutting, use heavy-duty tin snips or aviation snips for the best results.

For the most secure installation, lay the hardware cloth on the level ground first, then place your raised bed frame on top of it. Allow for at least 6-8 inches of extra mesh on all sides. Once the frame is in place, bend the excess mesh up along the interior walls of the bed. Staple the mesh securely to the inside of a wooden frame or simply let the pressure of the soil hold it in place against a metal one. If you must use multiple pieces of mesh, overlap the seams by at least 6 inches and securely fasten them together with baling wire or heavy-duty zip ties.

Ultimately, protecting your raised beds from below is about risk management. The small, one-time investment of time and money to install a hardware cloth barrier pays off for years to come. It eliminates one of the most frustrating variables in gardening, allowing you to focus your energy on cultivating healthy plants, not fighting a losing battle with unseen enemies.