Raised beds

Looking for advice on weather I should turn half in my veg garden into raised beds. Other than my own labour I have the chance to build 5/6 raised beds about 300mm high by 1800mm wide and 4000mm long in real money 1ft high by 6ft ish wide and 12ft ish long using concrete sections and post so no maintenance. I also have more than enough good quality top soil and as much farm yard manure as I need, sorry if I sound like Rex in big brother. Are there any short falls that I am over-looking, infact is there any reason not to build then given that the materials are at hand.

Russ

 

My advice would be to turn the whole of your veg patch into raised beds :thumb: :D

 

go for it. none of us are getting younger you have to think. they be easier to garden ,and less bending etc

 

Hi Leadbelly. As far as I'm concerned, raised beds rule ! Only one thing you might need to consider, is the width. You'll find it virtually impossible to reach across to carry out basic tasks like weeding and thinning. The 'norm' is around 4ft width. Cheers...freddy.

 

I totally agree with Freddy here, Russ. Have the beds as long as you like but no more than 4ft wide.:thumb:

 

Thanks guy's always helps with a little push. My top soil here is quite good but a foot to 18 inches down tight clay this tends to make the existing top pack quite hard. This same soil has been dug very well at this point should I once the sides of the raised beds go in put in a layer of inch stone/gravel to help drainage long term or is it just the fact that these beds being a foot higher that the ground they are sat on will drain anyway. By the way if you think you get rain we tend to get an extra dash here which is the reason for the above question.

Russ.

 

personally I wouldn't bother with the effort of gravel, although some sharp material will of course help draining. I think you would need to work that in, and then just pile some organic matter on top of the beds.

For me is the lack of the need to dig that is the key benefit of a raised bed, rather than the extra soil depth, although I suppose, thinking about it Doh!, that must help too.

 

Go for it sounds good to me and a bargain if its stuff u already have

 

HI again Leadbelly. Just to clarify, once you have the raised beds in place, you will have at least 2ft of topsoil, right ? I'd have thought that would be plenty of depth to work with, therefore no need to mess around too much with the clay. All I'd do is turn over the subsoil (having removed the topsoil) to open it up a bit, then shovel in your topsoil, adding as necessary to make it up to the level of the top of your 'boards' Cheers...freddy.

 

Don't forget that if you dig out the top spit from the "paths" that will add quite a bit to the "raised" bits

 

I am on flint and chalk and I am now a fit 73 but looking ahead decided to have raised beds for the veg in our new home. Wasn't sure that it would be worth the effort but went ahead and we are glad that I did. We have had two years of really good crops from our little patch and are now expanding it into other available parts of the garden:D The two links show what I did and their state in June this year. I thoroughly recommend having them.
stony



http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o5/stonycoral/raised-beds--LH--RH-25th-j.jpg

http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o5/stonycoral/10.jpg

 

Another senile moment on my part:o Correct pic now posted. After the were built, I double dug the bottoms of the beds, mostly with a pick axe:D, and then put the top soil from the beds and the surrounding paths back in. Added a lot of well composted turf, and other household and garden compost, and then mixed bags of purchased general purpose compost in as well. The results have been gratifying.

stony

 

Hi stony. Now THAT'S what I call raised beds ! Good job ! Cheers...freddy.

 

It may not be obvious in the reduced size photos that I have posted but the ground in our garden is slightly sloping in two directions. The result is that the two raised brick structures have different depths at all eight corners. The bricky did a good job to end up with both top edge surrounds all level with each other. It also means that at one end The soil, which never gets anybody treading on it, is around two feet deep and at the other, in the deepest part it's nearer four feet deep. So they are not only raised, but deep beds as well. Last year I managed some pretty long parsnips, but the carrots were not so long, and I was not impressed with them apart from the good taste. They were very sweet and carroty as they should be. In any restaurant that we go into, I always do a carrot tasting as a measure of the likely quality of the rest of the food. If the carrots taste of not much at all, you can almost bet your life that the rest of the food is naff as well.