Who does raised beds or square foot gardening?

[dhrynio]

I did my first garden here and used raised beds. I bought Mel Bartholomew's book "All New Square Foot Gardening". I love that it takes up such little space and that I can plant so much in one area!! I am also very neat and tidy so the organanized look also made me a bit giddy!

I did nine large pots of tomatoes and they grew like mad. In my beds I did cucumber in the back and carrots, radishes, alpine strawberries and beets in the front squares. They all grew like crazy except the beets. Not sure what happened there.

I did a mix of nice black soil, alpaca manure, rabbit manure and compost. I also added peat and vermiculite. It held moisture well and I only had to water once in the evening!
I will do it this way again next year and plan to add more beds!

Anyone else do this method?

 

[ChanellG]

I've never used a raised bed before, but I've thought about it. I really like the idea of the elevated beds, the ones at table height where you don't have to bend over. I think you'd have less issues with cutting worms and other pests. They'd really have to work for it, lol.

With something like this, you could probably grow something that liked shade underneath.

 

[dhrynio]

We are planning to build some like that for my husbands aunt. She has had her hip replaced and has terrible arthritis but still spend a lot of time gardening. I showed her a picture and she got so excited that she wouldn't have to bend over, squat or kneel and kill her knees!

This is what I picture for her!

 

[ChanellG]

That's awesome Danni! I'll bet she can't wait to get started with the elevated beds. I've been reading up on the implications of using wood and whether or not it should be treated. It seems if you want to be organic you'll just have to leave it natural.

I want to use a system like the one you showed above to establish an asparagus bed in the not too distant future. I just have to remember to take hurricane season into account with all these things.

 

[ChanellG]

Anyone else do this method?

Danni, I saw this on Pinterest today and I immediately thought about you and this thread. How are things going in your garden? Would a system like this work for you?

 

[Tmann]

I have 8 raised beds that I grow my vegetables in. One bed has asparagus in it which I do not rotate since they are a perennial. The other beds all get rotated each year.

 

[maddie]

@ Chanell, that design looks so good
I seriously plan to design something that is in between a window box and a raised bed on one of my balconies where nothing much grows.. I have planned to thin out some of the parlor palms in the basement that have grown like trees and block out all my light.. but then.. I may have to shift out and give this place on rent after doing all the hard work..

 

[Kyla]

I have a single raised bed that is basically a cedar frame, four feet on a side. I need to work the soil better under it though. I had hoped that by clearing the surface and layering in a lot of good soil and organic material it would work, but it is going to take a while for the soil building action to penetrate the compacted soil that is underneath.

I grew mostly sunflowers in it this past year (its first year as a bed.) They did fine until a big windstorm knocked some of them down. Which could happen anyway, with unstaked sunflowers, but I discovered that I could not get stakes into the soil deep enough to hold the flowers upright! Very disappointing, that was.

Here they are before the Big Blowdown. Oh, yes, I also grew kale in there. It did really well. This picture is just at the start of the season though, before they reached full glory.

 

[galmal]

I used raised beds for the first time a few years ago. I, too, had read "Square Foot Gardening" and was intrigued, but then kept gardening in my usual way. A few years ago we moved to a place that was all lawn and had bad soil, so I decided to build a raised bed. Boy was it so easy. I didn't have to till the ground and add in good soil. I didn't have to pull endless weeds and grass. I just covered the existing lawn with a thick layer of newpapers and mulch, then built the frame (actually, my husband built it) and added a mix of good top soil and potting soil. Viola, in one day I had the perfect garden bed. I loved it so much that I build another for a blueberry patch. It was great, because I was able to amend the soil according to what was planted in each bed. When we moved last year, I decided to elevate the raised bed idea (no pun intended) by using stones instead of lumber. The results were beautiful.

 

[Bandit26]

I love my raised beds. They are so much easier to work with, drain well and its easy to amend the soil as needed. They never get walked in so the ground is always easy to work and everything grows so much bigger and better.

Right now I have 4 beds
approximately...
20 x 2 with a large arbor for growing all the vining things
3x3
4x4
4x4
2x2
also did 2 potato bags last year

adding for this spring
8 planter boxes that are 30"x14" with a 4 foot trellis on each
3 more potato bags (maybe more)
2 strawberry bags/pots

 

[Rosyrain]

My dad used to do square foot gardening and he yielded available lot of vegetables from it. I am going to have to ask him why he stopped. I live the concept of raised beds and it looks like those planter boxes would be very easy to make. The bonus is that you don't have to squat on your knees for hours.

 

[Bandit26]

My dad used to do square foot gardening and he yielded available lot of vegetables from it. I am going to have to ask him why he stopped. I live the concept of raised beds and it looks like those planter boxes would be very easy to make. The bonus is that you don't have to squat on your knees for hours.

If you make the tall boxes you also keep the bunnies from eating your veggies