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From The Garden of Ed. Submitted for publication in The Towne Crier on November 1, 2006

A Raised Bed Garden: A Fall Chore is A Spring Joy.

It occurred to me after my last column, that I've recommended raised bed gardening more than a couple of times, but I don't think I ever gave many solid reasons why or advice about how to create one. To many gardeners it might be intuitive. But to some, new to the notion of growing their own food, or herbs or flowers, it might not be so obvious. There is still plenty off time to get going and install one if you put your mind to it.

So, what is a raised bed? It is one where the surface of the soil that the gardener is planning to work is elevated. How much? It depends on the specific needs or desires of the gardener.

I spent some time at the Roscoe nursing home in the greenhouse where the residents working in there needed to have the soil surface at the right height to work with from a wheelchair, about thirty or so inches from the floor, i.e. table height. In this particular situation, tables with 10-inch high sides were filled with soil and served the purpose admirably.

For most home gardeners, the advantages of a raised bed need to be enumerated in order for them to be appreciated. If I told you that you could plant vegetables more closely and have higher yields than conventional gardens, would you be interested? I would guess, yes.

Raised beds make easier work and everything is within a comfortable reach. Soil drainage is superior and there are far fewer disease problems. Soil temperatures are uniformly higher, so earlier planting is favored. Water conservation is improved, so you can use drip irrigation, soaker hoses, or rely on moisture meters and hand water each plant. No more overhead irrigation, which splashes about disease organisms and insects, and doesn't allow for a proper leaf drying time.

Mulching individual plants becomes simpler, as does weeding and pest control. Finally, adding soil amendments is a welcome task instead of a drudge. Why? Because the soil is loose, friable, and easy to work with. It has never been compacted by human traffic walking over it. It has literally been grown where it is.

Here's how this happens. Once you've mapped out a space for your first raised bed garden, define its space with a string or rope or garden hose. Allow three to, at most, four feet of width. You need to assess your comfortable reach from either side. Then determine an easily manageable length for yourself. Maybe it will be eight or ten feet. You decide. You are going to live with and work it. You may choose to build one or two a year.

A pickaxe or sharp shovel or crowbar will help you work the area and break it up to a depth of what you can muster. We are in Catskill territory, where rocks seem to appear overnight. Eight inches deep is pretty good. Ten or twelve is better. Turn over what you can, especially if it was grass or weeds. Cover it with several layers of plain newspaper, not coated stock (shiny). The hardest part is already done, unless you are extra ambitious.

I must mention an old fashioned method, probably from the French, with a nod to Greek, Chinese and Roman histories, called double digging. This technique was introduced into the U.S. in the 1930s. It is far more labor intensive that what I've outlined above, but proponents praise it. If you are digging your paths around the raised bed you've defined, what I suggest is that you employ an ages-old method of creating a planting place and using the method to supply material to your raised bed: dig a shallow layer of a few inches, turn it over and place it into the raised bed above. You can do this as if the sections were bricks or squares. Dig another shallow layer the same depth and place it into the raised bed. You are eventually standing at least six or so inches below, in your newly constructed path, and your raised bed is at least six or so inches higher supplied with a healthy layer of material from the same area.

Collect and pile on leaves, grass clippings, wood chips, leaf mold, sawdust, pine needles, compost, manure, and a scant shovelful of loose soil here and there from around the area. It's filled with beneficial microorganisms. They will accelerate the decomposition and do a wonderful thing. There are no restrictions on what you create the bed with, as long as it is not animal matter or fats. If it's organic vegetative matter, free of chemicals, it can go in. Bagged soil and peat moss can be part of the mix, too. Just don't walk on it. Remember the phrase from the movie about baseball? Field of Dreams, I recall. "If you build it they will come".

This also applies to earthworms. Darwin, Sir Albert Howard, and many others, including Robert Rodale wrote about it, and it became the foundation for organic gardening and farming. Repeat the process whenever there is material available. A neighbor just may want to get rid of a few bags of leaves. I once collected eight or more bags of leaves and got paid a few bucks to take them away. Whoopee! It's all organic.

I don't know if you are familiar with a book titled "Lasagna Gardening", by Pat Lanza, a Sullivan County innovator, business woman, former Master Gardener volunteer, and celebrated author; or, one of her predecessors, Ruth Stout, whose "No Work Garden Book" may have been Pat's inspiration. This is the track I'm suggesting. Let nature do a lot of the job. You supply the materials and some moisture. Earthworms will be the cultivators. The bed will grow in place.

What you need to consider is the best way for you to contain the bed. Sides might be fieldstone, lumber, cinder blocks, sheets of found aluminum, or steel doors. Synthetic lumber is available, equally expensive redwood, or even pressure treated lumber, which is also highly rot resistant. It is now deemed safe to use, as it is no longer manufactured using lead or arsenic in the process. Maybe nothing at all, in which case the bed will more resemble a mound.

The workspace (path) around the bed should be wide enough to walk through with a wheelbarrow or a garden cart that might hold some tools, water, soil amendments, mulch, or a container to collect weeds. I favor a path of wood chips. If grass was there originally, it might be overturned and covered with several layers of newspaper, wet down and then covered with wood chips. Pavers, bricks, gravel, or other options are fine, too, but remember weeds are opportunists and the paths will be compacted by human traffic and more difficult to control. (Straight vinegar is a good herbicidal control here, where it cannot drift to the garden plants above.)

Looking forward to next spring will be a delight once these beds are created and working themselves into shape over the winter. Keep in mind they won't be suitable for certain crops like squash, melons or corn. A few other things to keep in mind, too. Everything done for conventional gardens still applies. Do test to approximate soil pH and lime it to bring it to between 6.0 and 6.5. Do group vegetables of about the same maturation time, so that a second, or succession crop, can be planted when a first, short season crop is harvested.

Since the beds will warm up earlier, consider using row covers, walls of water and other protections for your tomatoes, peppers and other early starts. Don't forget to add features that will attract beneficial birds, insects, toads etc. Orient lower growing vegetables north south so they get sunlight to both sides. Taller crops should run east west so as not to shade the smaller ones at critical times of day.

These beds demand that you use a bit of creativity since row planting isn't necessary because the soil is not compacted by foot traffic. Plant close enough to shade out weeds without crowding. Leafy greens can be planted in sections along with root crops. Others can be planted six inches apart. Experiment and you just might be tempted to put in another raised bed or two next fall. Start small and see what happens.

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From The Garden of Ed. Submitted for publication in The Towne Crier on November 1, 2006

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© 2006 Ed Mues. All Rights Reserved.
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