RE: [CH] Raised Bed Gardening Suggestions? (Long)
Paul Queitsch (fiveqs@fwi.com)
Mon, 23 Feb 2004 20:07:22 -0500
Greetings!
We've been doing the raised bed thing for about five years now. We'll
never go back to standard gardening. Ours are just concrete blocks stacked
two high. One bed is 4x32 the other is 4x24. I would try to keep one
dimension down to 4ft. ie: 4x8, 4x16 etc. because it makes it much easier to
weed, till, harvest etc. without having to walk on the soil and compressing
it. Just sit on the blocks and reach out, nice :-) I went thru this whole
thread trying to find out how to do raised beds etc. in some other groups.
The conclusion was, cinder blocks were best and there was really no need to
join them with anything (cement etc) The advantage to normal blocks is you
can run fence posts down thru the holes every so often to serve as bean
poles and it also helps hold them in place, tho decorative blocks should
work as well tho without the pole thing or you could paint your blocks. When
they start to push out some from the weight, and shifting of the soil, I
just dig behind them a bit and kick them back into place (doesn't happen to
often and is primarily because my beds are on a slope, try to find a level
spot!). My Dad did his beds with railroad ties which has worked well. The
problems there being eventual rot and concerns over any kind of treatment
leaching into the soil (a matter of considerable debate) In my area I had a
hard time finding ties and they were quite expensive, so I did a price match
at Lowe's and got the blocks. One thing to watch for when building them is
leakage from watering. When they were first built anywhere there was a
sizable gap or the soil wasn't packed in well up against the blocks when
watering holes would form and soil would go washing out like crazy. So, I
would water fairly lightly initially to find where the leaks are going to be
and build up the leak spots with soil and also be sure the blocks are seated
tightly against each other. As far as filling the beds be absolutely sure of
where the soil is coming from. We bought ours from someone who assured us it
was really good and we even got a sample. Be sure to look at it when it's
dry (we didn't) when damp it looks and acts much better than normal. Ours
appeared nice and dark and much less sandy than it really turned out to be.
The other problem we had is that nothing seemed to want to grow in it. We
had a friend who knew the guy we bought it from try to find out where he got
it from. Turns out it was an old corn field, Bad, Bad, Bad!!! This meant
residual Atrazine and that a lot of minerals and nutrients were tapped out
of it. Took about two years to build it up to decent soil again. To
reiterate, make absolutely sure of where your soil comes from. To fill the
beds (which were right in the middle of our front lawn) we didn't put down
plastic mulch or anything, assuming that 16" of dirt on top would kill off
any grass or weeds underneath, and I was worried about the plastic allowing
the soil to slip/slump pushing out the sides. This worked just fine, no
weeds or grass grew up thru the soil. The beds have now pretty much
stabilized and we have had many good crops of veggies from them the soil is
very easy to till (just take a rake or trowel and mix it up :-) and we use
some miracle grow on 'em. I'd prefer organic but just haven't had any luck
composting (where we used compost experimentally the plants started dieing
within a week from every kind of wilt, spot, fungus, rust etc. you could
imagine while adjacent plants were fine). Hot peppers seem to be about the
best crop we've grown. They seem to really like the good drainage and sand.
They do need support tho. I've tried strings and tomato cages the cages seem
to work best. the strings give too much and in high wind the plants blow
over anyway, ideally I suppose cages with a string thru the top to support
them would be best. I have livestock netting (the fencing with welded
squares) between the bean poles, so I just tie everything off to those.
Plant tall peppers with larger pods in the middle of the bed and smaller
toward the edges to make it easier to harvest and weed. For instance
serranos in the middle are difficult to spot to pick and weed under etc.
Last thing, if you have more than one bed be sure to build them far enuf
apart to get the mower (tractor?) in between.
Hope this all helps, sorry it ran so long, but if it saves you some
troubles... ;-)
Good Luck!
God Bless!!
PQ