raised beds

[lnm03]

ok, so my thoughts for next year is to try to do some gardening with raised beds...Our soil didnt work with my root veggies and a neighbor said his father uses raised beds for all his root veggies....Is this a good idea? if so how deep do the beds need to be? do i need to put wood or plastic on the bottom so weeds dont come up or is that not a big deal?

Thank you!

 

[vfem]

I use raised beds for all my veggies. I have carrots that do ok, but my radish and potatoes do great.

They need loamy soil with some sand in it no matter raised or not so I'm taking it. I will turn in a most loamy compost in the spring for my next round of carrots.

 

[oberhaslikid]

When I started mine I used card board on the bottom.Worms Love it.

 

[patandchickens]

The main virtue of raised beds is if you have *no* soil (you're on concrete or rock ledge, or on such pure brickmaking clay that it will take many years to make much difference in it so you're starting with some small raised beds to grow something for now), or if you need the beds to warm up earlier or stay dry in a floody area.

Why not work instead on improving your soil, it's generally cheaper than buying enough new soil (which itself will surely need improving *anyhow*) for raised beds, and will require less watering.

Get as much organic matter as you can (fall leaves are always good, and manure; but there are lots of other things too of course). Break the soil up as deeply as you can and dig or till the amendments roughly in, don't worry about trying to homogenize it, just get them kind of basically stirred in. Don't till the soil real fine, leave it some texture, the important thing is that it be broken up to as deep a depth as you can manage with shovel or fork or broadfork or tiller.

It's probably too late to plant a cover crop in Indiana, but anyone reading this and contemplating doing same in a warmer climate could sow something to till in when spring arrives.

It would not be a bad idea to get *more* organic matter and add it in springtime, too. If you have more organic matter than you care to till in now, compost it til spring; or get more in the spring and add it a few weeks or month before you are going to plant.

If for whatever reason you are going to use raised beds anyhow, don't put anything on the bottom of them -- that partly defeats the purpose of raised beds. You WANT roots to be able to grow down into the real soil (which ideally should be broken up before putting the new soil on top of it). The only exception is if you have bad bad burrowing-rodent problems. If you are making beds on weedy soil, ideally you would fork up the soil and remove perennial weed roots by hand; but if you're not going to, skim off as much vegetation as possible (scalping with a weedwhacker works well) and lay a couple thicknesses of corrugated cardboard on the ground before putting your raised-bed soil on top. The cardboard will rot through by the time your plants' roots get there, but in the meantime it will make the weed roots/seeds in the native soil waste a lot of their energy fruitlessly trying to punch through it, so you will have very much fewer weeds coming up from the native soil. (You will still have whatever weeds are in your purchased soil, of course)

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[mener6896]

I am also in Indiana, and used raised bed for several of my vegetables. 2 beds are 4x12 that I used for strawberries (to help contain them) I have three other 4x12 beds that I used for peppers, zucchini/squash, and peas. I loved the raised beds so much, that I built 11 more!! What I did was put bagged dirt inside, however with the new ones I will till up the dirt that is there and put the box on top, then over the winter add leaves and compost. The beds that I already had, I added chicken poo to and covered with straw, in which I will till into the soil next spring.

I used straw for weed containment, but will probably use black plastic next year (I bought a roll from Johnny's seeds) this keeps the heat in the soil, weeds out,but also keeps the ground moist. I used this last year in my rows.

I'm located in central indiana (Noblesville) just an FYI, maybe we can chat about what grows well here! We had an awfully wet spring this past season, so I know a lot of people had trouble with tomatoes and such.

I hope this helps! I will try to post a pic of my new beds, granted they don't have the soil done yet. But if you see the two on the right, they have straw in them. These were from this year.

 

[ducks4you]

mener6896 , your beds look so neat and tidy! I'm just west of you, SSE of Champaign-Urbana, IL, so we can grow the same things. What kind/size wood do you use? Where do you get it (do you purchase or recycle)? How do you assemble/take apart your frames?
I like the idea of prepping your dirt and then filling.

 

[lnm03]

mener6896 your beds look great!!! How tall are they? Im not going to do all raised beds but there are some things that I want to try to see if I have better luck!

I didnt have any luck with tomatoes.....I was really disappointed! I usually can but what I had wouldnt have canned very well! Not enough for my time.....very disappointed we usually go into winter with 80 to 100 jars of tomatoes!

I am from Fort Wayne, about an hour and 45 minutes from you. What all do you grow in your raised beds?

 

[mener6896]

thanks!
I really debated on the whole wood thing, I was afraid of treated wood but was talked into it. I originally used 5/4 deck boards, but the new beds are 2x6x12 I bought the wood, and the beds look much more sturdy than the 5/4 boards.

My list of veggies/fruits for 2010 are as follows:

Strawberries, green beans, peas, zucchini, lettuces (romaine, bibb, salad mix) spinach, pumpkin, cantaloupe, cucumber, tomatoes, potatoes, peppers (bell, jalapenos), okra, garlic, onions, eggplant

not in beds will be sage, basil, oregano, chives, thyme, carrots, celery, dill, lavendar. I had most of these in boxes last year...but it just worked out different this year.

I usually do my garden plan on www.growveg.com I love this website because I can put in my frost zones, and keep my plan year to year and it helps rotate the plants.

I leave the beds year round. I covered with chicken poo and straw.