My neighbor has the most beautiful veg garden I have evert seen. She came from Yugoslavia about 35 yrs ago. She has 4 inch trenches between each row of plants. This is how she waters the plants. She does not water top of plant, leaves or veggies, just the roots. She often just lays her hose at end of trench on low and leaves it for 10 min or so then moves it to the next trench. The trench fills up and distributes the water to all plants. You do have to make sure you have a buildup of dirt at end of each trench to keep water in. I don't have a veg garden but do trench circle around my 2 tomato plants. And whats nice is she shares.

 

thats a good idea, and thanks for it

 

the big advantage of raised bed gardens is your putting the compost and soil right where your growing at,,,not in the walkways in between,,,its also easier to weed ,,,not as far to bend over,,,,and you avoid soil compaction,,,your walkways stay the same place all the time


the disadvantages are they require more water ,,,they dry out faster,,,its not as easy to till,,,

on smaller gardens they work well ,,you can plant more intensive

i grow a huge garden and am working on beds every year ,,,not realy raised per say but a type thats called french intensive,,or double dug,,, the idea behind these are to dig deeper where your going to plant,,instead of 1 shovel deep you toss the first out and turn the second shovel deep,,,it forms a water catchment under the planting area thats easy for the plants to get to

 

you are in MI ...... you'll find that raised bed warm much faster in the spring than a ground level .... might gain 2-3 weeks for early plantings .... depending on your irrigation system, there's advantages there also ....

 

if you use quality soil, then you have less to no weeding to do. which is a plus in my book

 

They are extremely useful in Florida,. Many yards here get standing water after our heavy rains. Raised beds help drain it away and prevent drowning the plants. It sometimes looks like I have garden islands.

 

lots of helpful info really quick, and all appreciated, I'll get started on building them this early spring, already anxious for the next growing season.

 

I am not a fan of raised gardens. At all really...

They are work, money, cute for a year or two and then what? A pain is what. you have to lift all that dung and stuff up over the edge.

I have beds, I do not plant in rows but rather in blocks, using the in-row space between plants in both directions. I find weeding is very simple - once at about six weeks and that's it. When the leaves of the desirable plants touch there are no more weed problems. I only lift and pull weeds, I do not till or hoe because if you till or hoe you just bring up more weed seed and you damage plant feeder roots. i lay the dead weeds back down where I got them unless I let them get rather big, in which case I take them away.

Okay, I have been known to do smiley faces, and little pictures visible from above eg a circle of carrots surrounded by a ring of lettuce... and it's fun. Whatever you do though, remember you can reach to weed on one side of a bed, then reach to weed from the other, so twice your arm length is how wide you can make the fluffy bed part of your garden.

You can have your walkways as dirt, and part of the garden, lay out your beds and then only walk between, and at the end of the season just rotary hoe the whole lot and start off again from scratch with new walkways, new areas.

Raising it though? Anyone who has gardened knows that loosening soil is easier if you're standing using a fork, than if you're down close to it. And those raised gardens eventually need a refill. And they eventually start to get weeds. All that wood to start with, and all that lifting going forward.

i think the biggest edge to a bed I would be comfortable with, and which would allow for a decent amount of mulching is probably about 9 inches.

 

The advantages for me are that they save wear and tear on my knees and back. :

I like them because it's less weeding, for one thing. I'm putting two 30'x4' ones in now, and on top of our evil bermuda I'm laying down a thick layer of cardboard as a weed barrier. Bed frame goes onto that, and then I'll start pouring in bunny crap, shredded leaves, spoilt veggies, pulverized eggshells, chicken litter, etc. I'll cover it with black plastic through the winter and it'll cook down quite a bit.

Our ground has a lot of clay in it so it alternates between gunk and cracked concrete. Raising the beds gets our plants out of the clay and they seem to do a lot better for it. It does waste a lot of space but I consider it a fair trade for not having to bend over so much or do nearly as much weeding.

Oh, and since I tend to let our rabbits run loose in the yard every now and again, it keeps them from decimating whatever is growing since they're raised quite a bit.

 

Big fan of temporary / seasonal raised beds.

I'd suggest that you try a small area for raised beds next season. I really like the idea of the early warming of the soil.
You should be able to garden more intensively too with the raised beds as well.

Look... for water conservation use a soaker hose AND mulch. For tomatoes and peppers, I cage them. Add, soaker hose followed by plastic mulch followed by straw when it REALLY gets hot. You'll cut your water use AND have no probs with weeds.

 

I have some raised beds that are 25-30 years old. Also have some double dug (French intensive) beds I dug at Mom and Dads when I was 15, I'm now 45. The root penetration in those is unbelievable.

Some of the gully's in between my raised beds are 8-12 inches below the top of the beds. I don't use any sides on most of them. They are grass gulleys with grass up to the bed and I run a push mower up one side and down the other to keep clear. Each year I continue to add mulch, though it always seems they never seem to get much higher than 8-12 inches. Where does it go?

I've been going "no-till" on some beds, but for the most part, when I till now, I just usually skim the top 2-4 inches, which helps for direct seeding, but still brings up the weed seed. Heavy mulch will take care of that.

For weeds, I mulch, mulch, mulch. Manure, rotted hay, grass clippings, leaf mold, whatever I can get a hold of. Feeds the soil in the process. Don't feed your plants, but, feed your soil, and the rest will follow.

Rotten Alfalfa below. Mushroom houses can't use it, so it's free around these parts whenever it gets rained on before they get it in, and loaded with micro-beasties. Drives my veggies nuts.

Mulching my tomatoes earlier this summer. I put it on almost a foot thick and don't have to weed for the rest of the summer. Plus. I feed the soil for future plantings and don't need to do much watering either. I see these wonderful gardens on here where fellas have to bust their asses to keep moist and if they would only mulch, their lives would be much easier. Again, helps with weeding too.

Do I have crop failure? Sure I do. This year was a horrible year for tomatoes for me and most of the area. Had horrible late blight and cut my harvest by about 30-40%. I will need to move my tomatoes far away next year...

 

Look up 'square foot gardening'. Uses 1/3 each peat moss, vermiculite, and compost...no dirt. Put your barrier down below raised bed.

 

I like this method as well.

 

I have raised beds and they really help with your back. It's much easier to tend to a garden that way.

 

Ditto:thumb:

 

We have problems with drainage. Raised beds allow for much better drainage.

Sometimes we may get a week of rain, water will stand a few inches deep and may take 3 or 4 days to run-off. Some weeds do very well in that, but most crops will drown. At the driest portion of August our water-table may be 1 foot below grade.

My driveway was put in at 3 foot above the forest floor. I use concrete blocks for our raised beds and I place them on the shoulders of our driveway. So they are up above the standing water when it rains.

I have found that by using concrete blocks I can easily remove on side of the blocks; then use my tractor bucket to scoop up all of the growing media. Carry it away, and remix it for the next season. I can replace the blocks, then dump the freshly remixed potting soil inside the beds again.

One of our neighbors; laid out compost for her new beds. Then she dug her walk-ways by hand and threw the dirt on top of the beds. Of course the walk-ways fill with water every time it rains, but the beds were just slightly above water. The next year she dug them deeper. Right now her walk-ways must be 2 foot below grade, and they all drain into the road-side ditch.

That seems to work well for her.

 

I built my raised beds because the walnut trees in our yard have poisoned the soil.

This was the first year I used raised beds. I made them about 10" deep with 2"x12" boards. Once I got them built, I nailed wire mesh on the bottom of them - to keep moles & voles from getting in from underneath.

Once I got the beds placed where I wanted them, I put down a heavy weed preventing fabric and then filled them.

I like using the raised beds, but to be honest, if it weren't for the poisoned soil, I wouldn't use them. Mostly because I think I could make better use of the space.

 

I'm going to try raised beds next year due to the high clay content of my soil. I'm also considering weeding-one of the great things about my deck garden was no weeds, pests, or rabbits. :

One question that was asked hasn't been addressed much yet, so I'll repeat it: what experiences do you others have with the use of landscape cloth? I can see mulch being good for weeds, but what about the dirt-dwelling critters like voles and beetles? The cloth is advertised to help with that, but does it?

The method I'm considering is to till the soil up so the stuff that's there now will be tilled into the soil and die. I'm talking useless perennial hosta mostly. I have some hedges of that in the yard that will probably die in favor of strawberries but I digress. After tilling the main area, lay down the landscape cloth, put the raised beds on top, and fill with fresh compost. The raised beds that I have are 9" deep or stackable to 18". I can use the square foot gardening method. I can also run some chicken wire in a diagonal using my garage for the upper support and perhaps stake with some rebar or attach to the garden beds for the vine crops to incorporate vertical gardening principles and hopefully stymie some rabbits & squirrels though I'm concerned that the little buggers can climb.

But what about the soil dwellers, like voles? Will the landscape cloth be effective in keeping them out of my goodies?

 

I can't see landscape fabric keeping moles or voles out. I suppose it's possible, but with their sharp claws, it seems like they would be able to make their way through it in no time.

A fine hardware cloth/metal mesh that you can find at a hardware store will work better, IMO. I nailed it to the bottom of my raised beds and then flipped them right-side-up. I don't recall what size I used, but it was the smallest size they had available - maybe 1/4"? The moles and voles won't be able to chew their way through it.

 

Raised garden beds were invented by people who are not lazy enough to simply develop their soil. They are a "shortcut" to a proper growing conditions. While they are an advantage versus soil development for the first couple of years, they are a static feature in that they never really improve.

What I mean is, they are a band-aid of artificially rich but entirely dead soil atop an expanse of flawed, but likely not dead, soil. They are a step backwards.

Instead of all the work you mentioned, mulch the soil with the chipped debris of deciduous trees and/or straw. Weeding is minimal, and in my area, I never water.

Also, if you have trees, perennials, and shrubs in your garden, you will develop a thriving soil ecosystem of saprophytic and mycorrhizal fungi, bacteria, protozoa, etc., in which nutrients don't leach out. Dead soil can't retain excess nutrients, so the application of fertilizers is, ultimately, largely in vain, as it just percolates away.

Build soil, not boxes.

 

In my case; I can lay down mulch and manure till the cows come home. The soil will still grow moss, because seasonally it is standing water.

The state DEP [Department of Environment Protection] has rules about bringing in 'fill'. While for the most part, no body cares, one of our neighbors was fined for it. So I can not simply bring in 2 foot of fill.

I dug rows of 1 foot drainage ditches through-out our orchard; plus raised beds for each of our fruit trees. To get their root-balls up above the water table.

I agree that the soil needs to be alive and filled with living organisms. It also needs to be above the water-table.



As you said raised beds are a quick bandaid. But they do not stop at that. You can build good soil in them every year. Woodchips is a good mulch along with straw.

I see folks who setup empty raised beds. Then using a toilet bucket they fill them slowly with humanure and woodchips over the course of the winter. The next spring planting annual grasses. In this manner they can build 3 or 4 beds each year; and after 2 years each of these beds are producing veggies.

It can be an important feature in permaculture.

 

we have many, many, many, a whole lot, of moles and things. They have decimated sections of garden and potatoes. If it is a root crop, most likely it will be devoured, but they seem to keep away from turnips (could be I'm just lucky on that).

I have done several raised beds that are about a foot tall with wood walls. Built a box, put 1/4" wire mesh on it, and flipped it over. Filled with good soil and compost and I have had zero loss from moles in those. Raised beds with walls will also keep rabbits out, another thing we seem to have plenty of. You can also get 10 foot lengths of thin gray conduit of the big box store, hoop them over a 4' wide raised bed and cover with plastic when it gets cold. You can grow several types of veggies thru the winter this way. And of course, you have the earlier spring planting because of warmer soil.

This is how raised beds have helped me so far. I use raised beds along with traditional gardens.

 

I have started my first raised bed about a week ago and plan on building it up during the rest of the fall. hoping it will help with the weeding, watering and to keep my dog from digging in it.

 

I do not agree with Drudge. Boxes can be better. My soil is heavy clay, filled with lake/river rocks, and is on the side of a hill. It is rock hard when dry, and when wet, slipperier than snot!

I have boxes from 6" to 30" deep. They are built on a gentle hillside. A previous attempt to garden that area (rototilled twice, planted, watered weekly if needed) got very little out of the ground. The garden could not hold the moisture from rain, and there was alot of visible erosion. Indeterminate tomatoes grew about 2' tall. Asparagus planted 6 years ago is barely there anymore.

I built the 4X16' boxes and filled them with black dirt mixed with compost. Yearly I rake in a few inches of homemade compost. They hold moisture when the surrounding clay/rock laden ground is cracking. They shed a 6" rain one summer without damaging the plants (surrounding ground became a downhill pointing clay slick!) We got 20" that month -- everyone else's gardens were drowning. My were just moist, and there was no erosion into the surrounding lawn. Two year old asparagus (same variety/sex) is really thick and spreading rapidly.

The soil is rich, black and loose. I grow in a square foot garden style and never walk on the soil--just the pathways between the gardens. I have tons of worms in the soil, and my plants grow voraciously! I add no fertilizer other than the homemade compost. When harvesting carrots, I simply slide my fingers into the soil and lift them out. My parsnips are 18" long -- I can just pluck them out without breakage.

Also, planting root crops in the taller gardens really saves the knees and back! Tall crops are planted in the shallower beds and grown vertically. I used harware cloth on the bottom of the first one, but just used old carpet on the second, and nothing on the bottom of the third. They all are varmint free from below. They will just climb up the sides anyway! We do not have moles, but pocket gophers are in this area. They do not bother them.

 

Going to quote myself from the last raised bed garden thread:
http://www.survivalistboards.com/showthread.php?t=251698

Good book on raised bed gardens. Very easy to read:
Amazon.com: All New Square Foot Gardening (0789172001311): Mel Bartholomew: Books

Benefits to square foot gardening are as follows:

1. You start with a perfect soil mixture. People work their soil for years to get it perfect. Doing it in a bed it starts from the get go as perfect soil. You can start planting right away.

2. No need to own a tiller. Once again you have the perfect soil to work with. All that's needed is hand tools.

3. Weeds are easy to remove as the soil is very loose. We put a weed barrier down underneath our raised beds. Our ground is so rocky where I live in Missouri, a raised bed really was the way to go.

4. You have an easy to size work in. The book goes into ideal box sizes. We did a 4' x 4' box. The idea being that you can reach your arm into the box from all four sides to tend and harvest.


We have really good luck with our raised beds using the methods in the above book.
http://www.survivalistboards.com/showthread.php?t=226727

We used non-treated lumber for our beds but I want to eventually replace them with Cinder Block as it's only a mater of time before the lumber rots away.

Downsides to raised beds?
Require watering once to twice a day with the heat. A good garden most likely would retain more water.

 

For me its raised beds or no gardens. bad back, knees I cant stoop, dig much or bend.

 

All the advantages listed above are valid and partly the reason I went to raised beds a while back. Currently, I don't have raised beds and I miss them!

But, there is one other advantage, deals with square foot gardening, but not mentioned -- row crops are systemic of agriculture EQUIPMENT, not the fact that plants grow best in rows! In fact, for pollination and rooting, it is probably best to grow plants more naturally, i.e., in clusters, instead of in rows. I've found that best accomplished with beds, though I use the same practice in my open garden at present. Plant intensively in blocks, and leave the rows to farmers with 100 acre fields.

 

^^^^yes.... what he said^^^ !!!!:thumb: