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A raised bed is a mound of loose, well-prepared
soil, 6 to 8 inches high. The beds can be permanent with edgings of stone, blocks,
timbers, or aged railway ties, or they can be re-formed each time the garden is planted.
Raised beds are particularly helpful if you are working with heavy soils that drain
poorly. In the long run, easy maintenance and the use of hand tools make this method
extremely appropriate for the home garden.
What are the benefits of raised-bed gardens? First, no one actually steps into the raised
beds, and so the soil stays porous and loose and never compacts. This loose soil provides
good drainage, allowing water, air, and fertilizer to penetrate easily to the roots of
your plants.
If you make permanent raised beds, the garden path just next to the raised bed is never is
never used for growing vegetables. Because it is constantly being walked on and packed
down, weeds will not grow on it. It stays dry and clean and neat, and so gardening is easy
and convenient. Even after rain, you can still walk through your garden without collecting
a lot of mud on your shoes. Also, when you are working in your garden, you can kneel or
stoop down comfortably without worrying about accidentally stepping on your cucumbers or
squash or breaking leaves or branches and damaging your plants. All the maintenance jobs
are easy to carryout, whether pulling or hoeing weeds, cultivating, or harvesting. You can
pull a plastic or rubber hole along the path without dragging it through the vegetables
and crushing them.
Third, since the beds are isolated by the paths between them, you can rotate the varieties
of vegetables you plant in each bed every year. This rotational planting allows you to
keep one particular family of vegetables from consuming all the same kind of soil
nutrients. It also discourages insect pests and pathogens associated with certain
vegetables from remaining in the soil over winter and infecting the next season’s
crop.
Finally, the raised-bed gardening system makes a beautiful garden that is always orderly
and organized because it is so easy to maintain. You can easily reach into every corner to
cultivate the beds, and to pull young weeds as they appear. Succession-planting, which
keeps the garden constantly filled with vegetables, will be pleasing to the eye and enjoy
a place in your garden landscape all season long.
Raised Beds: An Easy Way
Start with a well-prepared seed bed. Enrich it with compost, manure, other organic matter
or fertilizer. The raised beds can be formed with either hand tools or a tiller with a
hilling attachment.
1. Mark the bed with stakes and strings. The width can be whatever you
find convenient, from 16 inches up to 4 feet. Walkways can be up to 20 inches wide.
2. Use a rake to pull soil from the walkway to the top of the bed.
Stand in one walkway and draw soil toward you from the opposite walkway. When you have
completed one side, repeat the process from the other side.
3. Level the top of the bed with the back of the rake. Sides should
slope at a 45 degree angle. A lip of soil around the top edge of a new bed will help
reduce erosion.
From: the BIG BOOK of GARDENING SKILLS.
Raised Bed Gardening
By planting in raised beds, you eliminate two-thirds to three quarters of the paths,
lessening not only the amount of open space that will need regular cultivation, but also
the soil compaction and constraint on root development that accompanies every path. Bottom
line, raised beds save space by eliminating unnecessary paths; they also reduce harmful
soil compaction caused by walking between rows. From STEP BY STEP ORGANIC GARDENING
Give Soil a Squeeze
Always check soil moisture content before you work the soil. It the soil is too wet or too
dry, cultivating can destroy soil structure. You can do a rough moisture test by picking
up a handful of soil and squeezing it.
If the soil crumbles apart when you open your fingers, it’s too dry.
If the soil forms a solid ball, it’s too wet.
If the soil holds together without packing densely, it’s just right, and it’s
time to get out in the garden.
In Summation
In my opinion, the two most important activities in one’s vegetable garden are
watering and weeding. All of my squashes and melons are placed in mounds that have gallon
jugs in them. The jugs have four small holes placed half way down and on the bottoms of
the jugs. If it is readily accessible, I put dried horse manure in the bottoms of the
holes, under the jugs. In the mounds, of my bean towers, there are three jugs.
In the last few years, I have found soaker hoses to be invaluable. These things are
readily manipulated to your particular need. With a little ingenuity you can build a
manifold with connections to all your mounds. This way the water will go only where you
want it. It will help immeasurably with your keeping the weeds down. There are over a
thousand dormant weed seeds in every shovel of dirt.
If at all possible, virtually everything should be mulched. On a day when the wind
isn’t blowing, black and white newspaper two layers deep should be put in your paths.
This too should be mulched. All these materials will help in keeping the weeds down. At
the end of your growing season turn it all under. It will aid in improving the tilth or
friability of your soil. In your vegetable garden never use wood chips as mulch. Wood
chips take too long to break down. While this is going on, it locks up nitrogen, a basic
nutrient |
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