Raised Bed Gardening
4/28/2008
If you're thinking about building raised beds for your vegetable garden, definitely go for it. Plants do better in deep soil and as long as you don't walk in the beds, you'll also avoid soil compaction. Now what root wouldn't want to grow in nice loose, deep soil? If I was a root, I'd tell all my root friends, "Hey come on guys, nice deep, loose soil over here, let's go!"
But this weekend, I had my first bad experience with raised beds. You see there was a root invasion from trees that were pretty far away. The closest trees to my vegetable garden are at least 30 feet away but I guess that's just a short hop for tree roots. It's almost as if one of these roots said to all his buddies, "Hey come on guys, nice deep, loose soil over here, let's go!"
So on Sunday, I was planning on planting some more salad greens but wound up spending the afternoon digging and pulling roots out of my beds. I always wondered why Mel Bartholomew in the book Square Foot Gardening
Well, I was wrong about that. After pulling a few giant piles worth of roots out yesterday, I made an executive decision. Whenever I build a new bed, a bottom will be a mandatory feature. I don't think I'll use a sheet of plywood for the floor as suggested in the book, but at a minimum, I'll load the bottom up with landscape fabric. Usually, I'd layer newspapers to stop weeds and because I know they'll break down and feed those earthworms that I was talking about. But since I want to avoid future root invasions, I think I'll pass on the newspapers. Do they make landscape fabric out of steel?
Mr. Bartholomew, sir, I'm sorry about the Square Foot Craziness remark. You were right and I should have listened. It won't happen again.
Posted by Anthony 7:14 AM 9 comments
Labels: raised beds, vegetable garden
Raised Bed Pictures
6/13/2007
Posted by Anthony 12:01 AM 4 comments
Labels: garden projects, raised beds
Garden Picture
6/09/2007
This is the neatest my vegetable garden has been in a few years. Usually the weeds between the raised beds are just as tall as the vegetables. But after putting down a fresh layer of mulch, everything looks good.
I also took down the wire fencing that I've been using to keep the woodchucks and rabbits out and replaced it with black deer fencing. You can get a 100 foot roll of deer fencing for like $12 and I only needed a few 2x2s for posts. The best part is that you can hardly see it. The wire fencing was an eye sore.
Now the sad part about this neat garden is that I'm way behind with my planting. I've got my tomatoes and peppers in but not much else. This weekend I'm going to try and get my cucumbers, squash and pumpkin in the ground. Let's hope for a warm September.
Posted by Anthony 1:46 PM 2 comments
Labels: garden pictures, raised beds, vegetable garden
Raised Garden Beds
2/16/2007
There's nothing sadder than a garden in the middle of the winter. Although the fact that most of the snow and ice has melted in my garden area while the rest of my yard still looks like Antarctica makes me think that I picked a great spot that gets lots of sun.
Once the warm weather returns, one of the first things I'm going to do is heavily mulch around these beds. Mulch is a great way to make things look neat outside. And as you can see in this picture, my garden is in need of some neat.
Posted by Anthony 11:35 PM 7 comments
Labels: raised beds, vegetable garden
Raised Garden Beds
3/14/2006
Every year I expand my vegetable garden and build more raised beds. You can never grow enough tomatoes! Five years ago I had started with two 4’ x 8’ raised beds that I made from cedar 2x6s and 4x4s. Last season I added three 3’ x 10’ beds and that brought me up to over 230 square feet of planting area.
Making a raised bed is a simple bit of carpentry that anyone should be able to do. The easiest way to buy some 2x12 lumber and screw them together in the shape of a rectangle. You can make them as long as you like but you should limit the width to 3 or 4 feet so you can easily reach in the bed to plant seeds, pull weeds or to harvest crops.
The next question you’re probably asking is what kind of wood do I use to build raised beds. The whole pressure treated vs. non issue is a complicated one. Does pressure treated wood leach chemicals into the soil? Well the answers are yes and maybe.
The old pressure treated lumber (CCA) is preserved with a process that uses arsenic. Obviously you don’t want arsenic anywhere near something you’re going to eat even in the small amounts that might be present in a raised bed vegetable garden. CCA wood isn’t too readily available anymore so you probably don’t have to worry about coming across it. The new improved pressure treated wood (ACQ) replace CCA pressure treated wood a few years ago. The lumber industry says it safer to handle and use but guess what? It eats through normal galvanized screws and fasteners. You have to use stainless steel screws with CCA wood. Hmmm, I’m not an expert with lumber or chemicals but that sounds fishy to me. I think I’ll avoid it until some long term studies are done.
The first four raised beds I built were from cedar. But cedar is really expensive and my wife wanted to kill me for spending $300 on wood that I was going to leave in the yard. My latest raised beds are built from regular non-pressure treated lumber that is rotting away in my garden as we speak. If I get about 5 years of use from it, that’s good enough for me and my veggies.
Posted by Anthony 10:12 AM 8 comments
Labels: garden projects, raised beds, vegetable garden
