How To Build Raised Garden Beds

Pressure Treated Garden Bed

Raised bed gardening is an easy approach that may enhance the health and productivity of your backyard. Raised beds have higher soil construction and drainage, allowing the soil to heat up earlier within the season, and supplying you with a head start on spring. Stubborn perennial weeds could be much less of a problem in raised beds than in other gardens.

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Raised beds take very little space, and may be built proper over a concrete patio if lined correctly. Drainage in a raised bed is superior to that in an in-floor backyard bed. A 12″-deep mattress supplies ample room for most vegetable roots. I’m attempting a new technique this spring to combat the new dry summers within the South.

Plants will develop deep root systems reaching for this moisture, versus shallow roots with surface watering. Not only will this conserve water, but everybody is aware of plants favor rainwater. I actually have even heard of masking a downed tree with soil and planting on high of it, omitting the bed all collectively.

Before filling the beds with soil, toss in some hardwood logs that are somewhat previous their prime from the wood pile. As the logs break down they provide nutrients for the soil and act like a sponge absorbing rainwater that would usually drain out the underside of the mattress.

In the woods, the most lovely foliage is at all times near a fallen tree. My beds are 10″ and I develop carrots and onions successfully in them with no liner. 24″ could be fairly tall for planting okra in… you could have to get a ladder to reap! Or you can cut the tops once they get too tall — you can do that with tomatoes, too — and they’ll both continue fruiting on the lower stems.

I’ve gotten them from my local tree service as well as a neighborhood lumber mill. I purchase in bulk, as for my wants it’s essential to get two trailer masses per 12 months. But for just a few raised beds, bagged wooden chips may be more economical. They will break down into the soil, including to the fertility over time, so that you want pure wooden chips with none further components.

My native soil has very poor drainage as properly, and constructing raised beds helped tremendously. From what I’ve learn, fashionable concrete blocks don’t include “cinder” anymore; instead, they contain fly ash, a byproduct of coal. The gardening and environmental world seems to have combined opinions on this, and I haven’t discovered any onerous scientific research.