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m_lorne

Building the raised bed kitchen garden - pics

m_lorne
14 years ago

I've noticed there has been a good deal of questions regarding raised bed construction lately, so I thought I would share my experience over the last few days.

As background, I have been a square foot gardener for some years now. Last year, a move to a rural property gave me the opportunity to build a 2000 sqft raised bed garden. However, this garden is located about 300' from the house, and I was very much hoping to build a kitchen garden closer to the house for salad items such as lettuce, spinach, peas, a few carrots, and some herbs. The larger (now 3000 square feet) "production" garden will grow the essentials for cooking and storage.

Construction

The bed frame was constructed from some scrap in the barn: 2x12" aged cedar, almost petrified at this point. The boards were cut to make a 4' x 6' bed and screwed together at the ends. Nothing fancy, just nice and sturdy! In the past I have used plain old pine, 1x6's and 1x8's. I love the extra depth of the 12" board, but I would never shell out the money for 12" if it wasn't here already.

Ground preparation

Even though I was filling the bed with 12" of soil, I wanted to make sure the soil under the bed itself was prepared properly. I am a firm believer in giving plants the necessary conditions to grow with as little 'maintenance' as possible. This translates into greater space between plants and deep working the soil. It may look like a square foot garden bed, but it will not resemble one after I'm done planting. I find the added breathing room provided for each plant comes short of the yield of a square foot intensive, but lesser amount of work more then makes up for the slight drop in yield.

After removing the sod, I broad-forked the area. This is similar to tilling without the negative effects of churning the soil. It works the organic matter and fertilizer, aerates the soil, and breaks up compaction quite nicely. I try to broad-fork even the larger 'production' garden, but it takes quite a time to fork a 4'x50' raised bed, let alone 5 or 6 of them. However, for this small space, at minimum you should be using a standard garden fork and working the 8-12" below your bed. Double-digging not required, just work the soil a bit.

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As far as ammendments, I am using a Complete Organic Fertilizer as outlined by Steve Solomon. My formulation this year is as follows (based on what I left from the last few years):

3 parts soybean meal

1 part kelp meal

about 3/4 part bone meal

1 part dolomitic lime

I broadcast about 2 cups into the base garden, and fork in. In the upper portion, I use about 4 cups.

After the soil has been worked, a layer of cardboard is placed over top and watered well.

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Now comes the fun part...

The Soil

I had a load of...

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