Ok, I'm starting my very first veg plot this week. I took some advice from my mother who has had a garden of her own before (many years ago) and she says I'll need to construct raised beds. Now this has put a bit of a spanner in the works as I don't have the cash to buy wood planks this week and haven't been able to source any reclaimed wood yet so I was planning on just growing from the ground.
Now bearing in mind my mother also a person who says ERE is impossible, do I really need to build raised beds to grow veg, or is she talking sense?
I see lots of advice on raised beds being beneficial for drainage etc, but I have read drainage is also improved by double digging a standard plot. I can't see how a raised bed would keep pests out.
Raised beds aren't strictly necessary, but they do save your garden when there's a heavy downpour.
Raised beds can be as simple as a pile of dirt arranged in a row. You don't need to box them in.
Double-digging loosens the soil so roots can penetrate and does improve drainage for a few years. If you have clay soil, it will eventually puddle back and the drainage improvement is lost.
I think a lot of it depends on your soil type. My family has gardened for decades in good, deep, loamy soil without ever using raised beds to my knowledge. For a poor-draining clay soil or a sandy soil, a raised bed of amended soil could make a big difference.
Location, location, location!!
Like a used car lot. its most important.
When I moved to my present location, a long time ago, I built a raised bed garden just like the book described (Square foot garden)
It yielded a terrible crop. Turned out, the neighboring Large Oak tree sent rootlets up into my carefully nurtured soil of manure, diatomaceous earth and fertilizer and ate well, to the detriment of my crops.
It's more important that the soil be loose, well drained and watered as needed. Double dig your beds, fertilize and plant.
I have to start from scratch (again) with vegetable gardening this year. In the past I have successfully used raised and/or double-dug beds but this year I am going to experiment with survival of the fittest sheet-mulched polyculture. Just put down a layer of wet cardboard to smother the grass (or whatever), dump/pile whatever kind of compostable materials and soil you have on top then broadcast a variety of seeds (one variety at a time ) and cover with a light layer of compost. Then thin by eating whatever comes up. Start crops that can't be planted out until it is warm inside by the same method and use these seedlings and second somewhat more deliberate sowing of seeds to fill in any patches. Pretty much guaranteed that you will get a couple good crops of something or another. This is sort of the anti-thesis of the square ft method (to which I was previously devoted) because it is based on the premise that seeds and seedlings are cheap, land previously dedicated to lawn and compostable materials are moderately inexpensive and your labor is very expensive and you are going to proceed by trial and error rather than engage in meticulous planning. Of course, you might also accidentally eat some "weeds" but you will probably survive that.
Another thing I might try is using salvaged containers (as opposed to boards) to create boundary of raised bed and hold down the cardboard. For instance, you could just use a bunch of gallon milk jugs filled with soil and rocks to create a boundary that you can always move around. You could start some seedlings in the jugs and use the upper part you cut off to create a sort of mini greenhouse effect (if you could secure them from the wind.)Then you could move seedlings to center and plant flowers in jugs and it might actually be kind of pretty, especially if you were able to scavenge some nicer containers. You could eventually smother an entire lawn by expanding the perimeter of the bed one container at a time. You could create paths as you go by making stepping stones out of hypa-tufa or paper-tufa or scavenging something else. Just put one down wherever you find you need to step and scatter seeds of low-growing edible perennial ground-cover natural-mulch cover crop right around it. Etc. etc. etc.
I'm going to try using cardboard boxes to edge/contain a couple of beds this summer. I can plant in them, and even notch holes on the sides of the boxes for extra planting space (like strawberry pots). I've tried the same with coffee cans, which work well enough, but are a little too conspicuous looking for my taste when they are all lined up in a row around the bed.
What is with the fascination with containing the raised bed? I tell ya, just mound the dirt and let the edges go. If it's the dry season, you'll want to plant in the hollows anyway.
