Christmas is almost here and everyone is busy with holiday activities. However, now is the time to prepare your garden for next year.
Since we live on unreclaimed strip-mine land, normal, ground-level gardening wasn’t a choice with our soil. My wife convinced me to construct raised beds. After studying the concept, I built 5 raised beds. They are 5 ft. wide by 24 ft. long and 24 – 32 inches high (based on the slope of the land).
I want to share some of our experiences from the past 10 years and hope they help you manage your beds.
1. Our beds needed refilled to the top of the bed for the first 3 years due to soil settling.
2. My first bed was 6 feet wide but it was hard to dig/weed/plant/harvest – we couldn’t quite reach the middle without tools. I designed our other beds to be only 4 or 5 feet across.
3. I constructed the beds to be 24 – 32” high so there was no bending over to do work in the bed. You can also sit on the wood sides to weed, plant, or harvest.
4. Beds over 12 feet long need post supports every 4 – 6 feet to prevent the sides of the bed from buckling out. That much soil has a lot of weight.
Support with cross bars hold the shape of the raised beds against the pressure/weight of the soil.
5. Bed construction should be at least 6 feet apart to allow for small equipment use when adding compost and refilling the beds.
6. To determine the distance between beds, measure the width of your lawn mower or small tractor. Can you get it between beds with your loader bucket? Can you mow?
7. Treated lumber is damaged over time by weather. It will dry out and even twist, needing replaced. (We lined our treated lumber beds with rubber mine belting to keep the soil from being in contact with the chemicals in the lumber.)
8. Using corrugated metal roofing material for sides – with post supports – is cheaper than using treated lumber. (The metal can be decorated/painted).
Corrugated metal within a wooden or fiberglass-lumber frame makes an inexpensive bed.
9. Raised beds require less water since the walk ways don’t need water. Soaker hoses work great and you deliver water precisely to the plants.
10. The soil temperatures warm up earlier in the Spring.
11. Raised beds can produce table greens as early as April in northeast Ohio.
12. July and August are good times to determine placement of new raised beds by observing sunlight and shade on your bed location.
13. It is easy to cover a section of the bed with a small hot house or cold frame construction in the Spring or late Fall to extend your growing season.
14. Lasagna garden soil preparation works great in raised beds. At the end of the garden season, simply clean out remaining plants, cover the bed with cardboard and top with grass clippings, dry leaves, and/or compost or manure layers. The term Lasagna Garden comes from the layers of materials you are building. These layers break down over winter and your soil is loamy and fertile in the Spring.
Weeds are pulled and composted, cardboard laid down and then grass clippings applied. You can see in the last picture how deeply the grass clippings and leaves are. That's a 5 gallon bucket.
Old, dry manure is applied as a top dressing as a final step
. You can see how nice the soil in Picture 2 & 3 is to work.
This bed was Lasagna Garden treated the previous year.
A short how-to video about Lasagna Gardening
15. Because lasagna garden techniques increase soil fertility, you may notice more weeds the next year.
16. To stop heavy weed growth, I cover the bed with Geotech cloth in early spring and plant tomatoes in these beds. The cloth costs about $1.00/foot and is 12 feet wide. We bought ours from a garden supply store and it is heavier than you will find at most big box stores. Ours lasts at least 5 years, usually more.
17. The first year I plant tomatoes in the bed and follow it with cucumbers or peppers in year 2.
18. I have read and been told that Geotech cloth warms the soil too much for the brassicas, like broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower. These plants prefer cool weather and soil. They will dry out and get a ‘burn’.
19. Broccoli needs more shade than other garden plants. By accident, I discovered that 2/3 of one bed is best for growing broccoli because of the amount of shade that section receives.
20. Brassicas also need more water than most plants to prevent bolting.
21. The third year after doing a lasagna bed treatment, I remove the Geotech cloth and plant sweet potatoes. They love the deep loose fertile soil. The potatoes can be dug with your bare hands and will be the size of softballs. They don’t become ‘woody’, either.
22. From year to year, you may need to top dress your raised beds with compost or additional soil to maintain the height and fertility. This is especially true if you don’t use a lasagna type preparation in the Fall.
23. You can also plant a cover crop to recharge your beds over Winter. We have planted turnips in fall and feed them to our dairy cows throughout Winter.
24. If you have more space than plants, put all your summer compost material in an unused bed. You can later spread the compost on various beds or simply work it into the soil. Next year select another area to remain vacant and apply material for composting there.
These are some pointers that I hope help you. Raised beds offer many advantages. I’ve included links to information on construction and more.
Some information about raised beds and Ohio State Extension's Victory Garden program.
Now is time to order seeds. Last year, many seed companies ran out of popular seeds in early February. I sat down with my wife at the end of this season and we decided what varieties worked and what didn’t. We will be dropping some varieties – and seed companies – off our shopping list.
Merry Christmas and Happy Homesteading!
Bob
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