Long beds or square raised beds for gardening

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jacob
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Long beds or square raised beds for gardening

Post by jacob »

We've found a source of limitless free dirt/soil (city compost), so I'd like to level up our gardening efforts. I have not found a free source of wood chips yet.

Currently, what we have more or less illustrates our learning curve. We started with an unmaintained lawn. During our first two years, I doubledug 10 6x6 foot beds and framed/raised them using 2x4s. (This wood is now decaying). Two years ago, I double dug an additional 4x40 foot bed. This year I'm planning to take out a similar area of lawn.

The question is how to proceed forward with something more resembling an actual plan.

1) Turn everything into 4 beds that are 5-6 feet wide and 40 feet long. These would be parallel.
2) Turn everything into 20 6x6 raised beds with ~1.5 ft between them on a square grid.

I do not plan on using wood frames anymore.

My main challenge now is that I'm dealing with crab grass + encroaching lawn (that shit is hard to kill) and an unlevel yard that leads water to pool in parts of the yard, mostly towards one end. The long beds would be easier to defend against grass, but harder to defend against water, I'd imagine.

This goal with all this is to produce substantial amounts of vegetables. Last year, we harvested 90lbs (edible state w/o leaves, etc.). I think this was a bit below average. I'd like to get to 250+lbs.

I have some pics on https://www.facebook.com/earlyretirementextreme to get an idea of what it looks like.

jacob
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Re: Long beds or square raised beds for gardening

Post by jacob »

Yeah, right now, I have [the original] grass/lawn growing between the beds and it's definitely causing problems on the border. Given limited resources, I think the strategy would be to start from one side and eliminate the grass borders in that [given] area rather than reduce them. This would be easier with the long beds.

Soil-wise, the top soil is about 1.5-2 ft deep, but it's very clayey(SP?!), somewhat sour, and nitrogen deficient (we bought a test kit). I've been adding sphagnum to fluff it up a bit. Working on a nitrogen solution.

I'm unlikely to do the cinderblocks strategy. Cement actually requires a city permit :-P I could buy wood chips to spread out between the beds.

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Alphaville
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Re: Long beds or square raised beds for gardening

Post by Alphaville »

@bigato is essentially correct re:beds for convenience, but one scenario where you might want raised beds anyway is in cities with a history of soil pollution, e.g. lead from fuel, actually just from fumes which end up as soil sediment, and might end up in your food. so if you’re next to a traffic artery or in a place of long history of vehicular traffic... eh, i’d do a soil test regardless, a city is a city...

eta: here some reasonable folks on the subject: https://garden.org/learn/articles/view/4443/

sky
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Re: Long beds or square raised beds for gardening

Post by sky »

I would recommend a market garden approach, which uses rows of 30" in width with 18" paths. The rows should be as long as possible. This allows for installation of hoops, for plastic floating row covers (caterpillar tunnels), and bug net to prevent pests without the use of pesticides. You could put down landscape fabric under the pathways. To kill grass or weeds, you can lay a tarp down over the garden area for 6 months or so, which will kill most weed plants, although seeds will still be in the soil.

I would also recommend irrigation on a timer, which could be overhead sprinklers or 1/2" irrigation tubing staked down along the rows with holes punched into it.

Think about the non-row crops as well, you will need space for berries, melons and vine plants on trellises. Plan to be an expert in starting plants in flats and transplanting when the time is right. A small area with excellent soil could be reserved for seedlings and extra plants planted close together to replace the main row plants if they are damaged by insects, animals or drought.

There is no end to weeding, you can only hope that by regular weeding over time, you will reduce but not eliminate weed pressure. I would expect to weed at least once every week, pulling out the smallest weeds you can grab with your fingers. The grass will eventually come back but pull it again. You can also use a hoe and follow up with hand weeding. I wish I had a better solution that is not so hard on the back and knees, but I have not found a replacement for hand weeding.

EMJ
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Re: Long beds or square raised beds for gardening

Post by EMJ »

I suggest finding some local gardeners. They know best.
Is the city compost tested for heavy metals etc?

Sphagnum is not a long term solution to compacted soil. Work with soil microorganisms and roots.

mooretrees
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Re: Long beds or square raised beds for gardening

Post by mooretrees »

There is the potential to get free wood chips from local tree removal/arborist outfits. They usually chip up the trees they remove and have to dump the chips at the local waste station. Might be worth calling around and seeing if they would dump a load in your yard if they are in the neighborhood. As long as they are nearby it would be a win for them to not have to dump the chips and free chips for you.

George the original one
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Re: Long beds or square raised beds for gardening

Post by George the original one »

Long beds are easier to work with. 30" is a good width. I often shorten them to 10' or even 6' because it's annoying to not have shortcuts through the long rows. If beds are raised enough, then garden hose is less likely to wipe out the plants when dragged around.

Time to go outdoors weeding today...

saving-10-years
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Re: Long beds or square raised beds for gardening

Post by saving-10-years »

Concrete blocks for bed borders have worked for us for around 20 years now (the builder ordered the wrong size for work on our barn so we had lots we could buy very cheap from him). They can be reconfigured if you decide to change the bed profile later and (key) provide a based for our anti-rabbit defences. They also do not harbour slugs (as our early railway sleeper beds did).

We follow no-dig approaches so long narrow beds. Paving slabs between the beds with large pebbles between/around each slab to provide drainage (the slabs came from various friends' gardens as free to collect and the pebbles were dumped in our field by a drainage contractor. We had to use 'no dig' here as it was a constructing a vegetable garden in a farmyard - so on compacted earth (effectively a car park). We solved the problem of having an occasional lake sized puddle in the yard (compacted earth) when it rained by sinking two soakaway crates into the earth. We got cheaper versions of these https://www.amazon.co.uk/Polystorm-Poly ... B07W94P4KX

Could something like this work for the boggy part of your garden? It need not be so expensive as the commercial-made ones - unlike us you would not be driving on it so agricultural fleece wrapped milk crates would work in that case?

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Lemur
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Re: Long beds or square raised beds for gardening

Post by Lemur »

Need to come back to this thread...but speaking of crab grass. One of my plots got infected with this. I basically ended up abandoning that plot lol.

horsewoman
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Re: Long beds or square raised beds for gardening

Post by horsewoman »

I've been learning a lot recently by watching the videos of Richard Perkins. DH is an experienced gardener and knows a lot about how to do things, but Richard Perkins explains why he is doing things in detail, which is very informative. Naturally I've learned about him in this forum, so you might be already aware of the channel.

https://youtu.be/u79tiVcj8bY

IlliniDave
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Re: Long beds or square raised beds for gardening

Post by IlliniDave »

Coming from a line of gardeners that practiced the craft in that region I can relate the practices I've observed.

Most people go for the minimum number of larger beds. If necessary some pathways between sections can be left as opposed to walking between the rows. Raised beds are uncommon since there's not much clay in most places. You see timbers sometimes, but mostly for appearance. Not sure about Chicago proper because at one time most of it was a lowland area. If you don't have lots of clay or overly sandy or rocky soil, my first thought it that raised beds wouldn't be necessary. Soil compaction isn't too big of a problem either because there's usually enough ground freeze every winter to undo compaction from modest foot traffic.

Regarding the grass, it's a battle. Most larger gardeners I know are mechanized in the sense they use a walk-behind rototiller either in the fall, or more commonly, the spring. That will keep the encroaching grass at bay through the years and further loosens the soil. Another option is some sort of simple border. There are several varieties of plastic and metal landscape edging materials available that could be used as a model for DIY. If they are installed maybe 2-3 inches deep they'll block the underground runners typical turf grasses in that region (Kentucky bluegrass and similar fescues afaik) use to spread. Crabgrass is annual and spreads by seed, so you are stuck having to weed whatever comes up in the garden.

My dad always tilled a small spot (~10' by 15') in the back yard for mom to grow tomatoes and peppers. After planting she would put old newspapers on the ground around the plants to keep the weeds down. Dad would put grass clippings down periodically on top of that. My dad also used to till a much larger rectangular area adjacent to the vineyard. At it's peak with a house full of kids, and my grandfather and one of my uncles using sections it was a pretty good chunk of ground. Now that he's on his own and my uncle bought an empty lot next to his house for his gardening, he's stopped doing that and is just using the small section of the back yard my mom used to use. Remote gardens are hit-or-miss and highly dependent on regular rainfall. Home gardens if you're willing to irrigate during dry spells and weed/hoe occasionally are usually pretty successful without doing anything fancy. Most people have a problem with too much harvest rather than too little.

I haven't been up that way during planting time in a long while, but I've heard farmers have started moving away from plowing prior to planting. My understanding is they just disk or somehow scrape the surface and when they plant the machines punch a small hole where the seed is deposited. Allegedly the soil's microbe community is better preserved without the heavy disruption. I don't know if gardeners have similarly started new practices and have come up with alternatives.

Grow lots of cucumbers and zucchini if you main goal is pounds/ft^2. :) My dad's colleagues at the college would eventually start avoiding him because he would try to foist excess produce on everyone he encountered. He was very popular when the sweet corn started ripening, and for the first couple weeks the tomatoes started coming in, but after that ...

7Wannabe5
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Re: Long beds or square raised beds for gardening

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

You need to create a buffer zone between the beds and the grass or it will be a constant unlikely to create feelings of “flow” maintenance issue. This buffer zone can either be dead, semi-dead, or vigorous.

In the photos, I believe that I can see that you have a small strip of grass between your beds and some concrete pavement. Get rid of that strip and allow your bed to extend right up to the edge of paved “dead” zone. On the other side, one possible solution that I have used with some success is trenching. Dig out a trench of approximately standard shovel width (sloping sides are fine) and maybe 8 inches deep (no need for exactness here, but you may need to subtract from bed width for reach) between bed and lawn. This trench can serve multiple purposes. It can help with drainage and it can be filled with all manner of yard waste or household compost scraps. Then as you maintain the trench, you can also flip the compost or shovel it on to the bed once it is “cooked.”

However, I only recommend this method for annual vegetable beds or some herbaceous perennials. For beds or areas that include woody perennials or trees, it is more important to maintain fungal growth in the soil, so wood chips or even larger trimmings are recommended, but likely to break down too quickly to serve as barrier for more than one season. Therefore, in these situations, underplanting with species vigorous enough to compete with grass is recommended solution. Even in the situation of rectangular annual beds, attempt may be made to replace grass in paths with, for instance, white clover.

IOW, generalized rule of thumb is that if you do not wish to do tedious work yourself, you need to either use technology to do the work(tiller, pavement, trench) or you need to find another human or another species that is willing to do the work for you.

jacob
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Re: Long beds or square raised beds for gardening

Post by jacob »

For all intents and purposes, it's DW doing the gardening and I am that other human doing the tedious digging work, so she figured that one out alright :)

I think we have a plan now. I'm going to get rid of the [rotted] wooden frames and make some long beds (3.75' wide) with 1.5' trenches between them. The trenches (never thought of that, but it completely unlocked the solution) will act as a barrier to the lawn and serve to get rid of water and yard waste. We'll go right up to the pavement (there was indeed a strip of grass). Essentially, the beds will be surrounded by either grass/waste-filled trenches or the cement walk way.

Obviously, I should have started this project a couple of months ago. Now I have to work around stuff that's already growing. One of my trenches will unfortunately have to go straight down the middle of my benches :-P

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Re: Long beds or square raised beds for gardening

Post by jacob »

That's pretty much what I'm doing.

7Wannabe5
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Re: Long beds or square raised beds for gardening

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Smart lady, your wife.

Riggerjack
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Re: Long beds or square raised beds for gardening

Post by Riggerjack »

I'm not much of a gardener. Most gardens, to me, seem like small scale attempts to reintroduce 19th century farming at smaller scale to suburbia. All the work, and less production than modern ag.

To me, the question is more of one of engineering. :ugeek:

So I would look at the lot, and decide where the water that falls from the sky should go. And the water from other lots. Then I would link up the sources of water to the storage point of water.

Then I would decide on the garden spot, and how excess water from the gardens will reach water storage...

Then I would place walking paths. And the key here, is to separate water and nutrients from the walking paths. Think drainage pipe/gravel/pave stone. The sun hits dry stone, which doesn't support much in the way of weeds in the walkways. Less weeding/mowing. Keep water far from the places one doesn't want plants to volunteer.

Then build a raingarden in the water storage location, and if you want to get fancy, a irrigation system from the rain garden overflow to the garden, to take advantage of hard storms in dry seasons.

All of which is a lot of work. Thus the container garden on my deck... Not as productive, but not nearly as much work, either. :D

7Wannabe5
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Re: Long beds or square raised beds for gardening

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Cosign on possibility of rain garden. When the amphibians show up on your urban project, you get to put up a plaque!

reepicheep
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Re: Long beds or square raised beds for gardening

Post by reepicheep »

Find a company that cuts down nuisance trees and chips them. Call them and ask if they will drop off chips at your house. Sometimes the electric company has to cut down trees.

In Portland we have chipdrop, which is free (donations encouraged).

Often the company has to pay to dispose of the wood chips, so they are happy to have a driveway to dump it in for free instead.

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jennypenny
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Re: Long beds or square raised beds for gardening

Post by jennypenny »

I've posted pictures of our traditional raised beds on the forum before. They were getting old and needed repair, and we were having the same problems as other people ... encroaching grass, too many critters eating the produce, etc. We also have the additional concern of DH's back issue which isn't going to get better.

We decided to redesign the garden to incorporate the whole yard. I got my PDC and used my newfound permaculture skills to redesign the space. I tried several designs including a food forest and blended approach, but ultimately decided to go with a combo of a food forest with as many tall raised beds as we could fit in the space. (we got the tallest beds we could find since DH is 6' 5") It's slow going converting the yard, but so far we love the new beds. We're using cattle panels in each one to expand the growing space. We plan on tucking smaller tall beds in amongst the fruit trees (sans cattle panels) once we get the bulk of the beds set up.

It's hard to be patient while slowly converting the garden, especially with so much talk of inflation and food shortages. We did buy a share in a CSA this year to cover us while we get things going. I think we'll have most of the beds up by the end of july so we'll have food through thanksgiving if we're careful and use bed covers when it gets cold at night. We plant each pair as soon as they're assembled so we'll (accidentally) have a nice succession of food this summer.

The beds are EXPENSIVE to purchase but DH wasn't up for constructing them ourselves. We decided it was still a good use of our $$ because (1) food is getting expensive, (2) there's no place we're comfortable investing right now so the money would just sit in our account waiting for an opportunity, and (3) it's better (long term) than using the money in an alpha strategy/mega prepper way and stockpiling food that someone else grew. We're also hedging a bit and designing a garden for our older selves. We're 56yo now and wanted to invest in a garden that will still be manageable when we're old farts.

The beds are great and so easy to maintain compared to in-ground and/or low beds. And no issues at all with the beds like critters, weeds, grass, poor drainage, etc. The only issue we still have is the deer, including one that's apparently moved into the yard, but she seems content to eat bird seed and food scraps if we keep them well-stocked in the feeding area.*

Because the beds are deep, we decided to set up in-bed vermicomposting systems in each one. I plan on taking scraps out on cooking days and filling one bed each time. I'll slowly work my way through the beds and by the time I circle back to the first one, it should be completely broken down into compost. I'll cover each opening with a tile to keep critters and odors at bay.


* We have an area dedicated to birds and other wildlife with feeders and other things, surrounded by pollinator-friendly plants.We drop food scraps and produce we aren't going to eat in that area and the wildlife eat it up. It's nice to have a kind of sanctuary in the garden for the non-human inhabitants of Stepford. It's a bit of lovely in the garden that we find very peaceful.

GardenDee
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Re: Long beds or square raised beds for gardening

Post by GardenDee »

Jennypenny- do you have a link to the beds? We are not old farts yet, but would like to plan ahead!

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