Raised Bed Vegetable Garden
A raised bed vegetable garden can be made from wood, concrete blocks, rock or other materials that are then filled with soiled. Depending on your needs they can stand anywhere from 6″ to waist high above the ground. Common reasons for creating a raised bed is for easier access for people who find the bending movements, so common to regular gardening, difficult or impossible to do.
It is important to consider your construction materials carefully since timber, for example, that has been treated can allow toxic chemicals to leach into the soil and which ends up in the vegetables themselves. It’s better to use hardwood or rocks.
You need to consider how level your yard is too. A sloping site is more difficult to work on than a flat one and if it’s really steep you may get soil erosion after heavy rains. One way to help deal with this is to set the beds across the slope.
Also, if your garden is very windy you might have to put up windbreaks. Make sure they are permeable so the wind can get through, otherwise they’ll fall down or create turbulence and you’ll have to start again. They can be man made like a fence or a living barrier such as hedging. The latter tends to be more atractive but will take time to grow and will require work to keep it healthy andlooking good.
The most common shape for a raised bed garden is a rectangle although sometimes they are circular with a slice cut out so the centre can be reached more easily. These are called keyhole gardens and are particularly good in areas where there is a water shortage. In these cricumstances a chimney type structure can be built in the centre and filled with grasses and sticks. When this is filled with water it allows it to flow more evenly into the soil, efficiently reaching the roots of the plants sown in the raised bed.
Planting is usually done in geometric patterns and is closer than you normally find when gardening in rows straight into the ground. The proximity of the plants to each other can cause a microclimates which helps to conserve moisture and keeps the weeks down. Also the soil doesn’t get compacted, as there are no human boots walking on it, so the roots can grow more freely. These differences from conventional planting often result in more vegetables being produced.
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