Some other thoughts than were presented above. It appears that some kind of lumber is the most commonly used way of framing out raised beds. Likely because it's the least expensive (in the short run). But, when you put wood next to moist soil, it's going to rot, and then you have to re-do your beds down the road. I'm not even going near the pressure treated discussion since I don't consider myself well enough informed. I would just point out that there is "lumber" made of recycled plastic. It looks nice and would last indefinitely. There is also brick or stone. I used the decorative concrete blocks that don't require mortar. My beds are on a hillside, so these were easy to use, are basicially low retaining walls, look nice, and are wide enough for me to sit on as I work. It's true they cost more than wood would have. But, I was able to do the construction ALL by myself and I should never have to do it again. Land and money permitting, you can add new beds indefinitely. This is just my second year with raised beds, but I love them. I have nine beds that are 8 feet by 3.5 feet wide. If I'd had room, I would have built them longer, but not wider. They are just the right width for me to reach into from any side and never step into the soil (dirt) of the bed. Being on a slope, they are about 6 inches high on the slope side and a foot high on the front. When I built them, I dug down a foot into the native soil, loosening it well. Then I filled the framed beds with manure and compost, as well as the dirt I dug out of the paths, levelling them up. Just for your info, I used about 3 large pick up truck loads of manure that I got from a local stable, plus a year's worth of compost from my yard. I'm guessing it was probably close to a pick up load too. One caution: the manure had alot of sawdust in it from the stalls and I do believe it tied up the nitrogen for the first couple of months. I used fertilizer as a supplement. The situation seemed to right itself by mid summer. I started out by mixing herbs, flowers and vegetables into my beds. It's such a lovely idea...but it didn't work very well in my long growing season. I have time for two summer crops of vegetables and just as the flowers were hitting their stride, it was time to pull out the old and plant the new. This year, I am going to plant one crop per bed for simplicity's sake. Rotation: I plan to plant three beds each year with one type of crop: 1. tomatoes, peppers, eggplants (all in the Solanacaea family. 2. squash, cucumbers, melons, and 3. beans, cowpeas and limas. I will rotate each family of plants each year so that no family will be planted in the same ground more often than every three years. My winter garden fills three beds, so I will rotate those crops to a different set of beds each year too. The remaining beds will have green manures planted in them through the winter. Last year, I used Mel Bartholomew's spacings for most of my crops. For the most part, they worked well. The tomatoes took more space than he called for (I plan to put three plants per bed this year with an edging of marigolds. Tomatoes being a long season crop, you know.) Like nyc, I recommend his Square Foot Gardening book, especially the first edition. You may not want to use every single idea he gives, but there's an awful lot of great value in it. One note. Definitely make your paths at least 3 feet wide so you can get a wheelbarrow into your beds. Here's my recipe for success with vegetable gardening: Read all you can, especially books that are written for your geographical region. Try stuff. Expect to succeed: do that again. Expect to fail: do something different next year. Tend your soil. Have fun!

Lou, I think it's important to recognize, that while peat itself may be antimicrobial, it may not be significantly or substantially antimicrobial in all situations. Peat bogs are one environment, the european/canadian cold murky bog areas and those unique conditions lead to the breakdown of the plants that create highly acidic conditions. I don't think that dried out peat, mixed in to soil, in the U.S. or expecially the hot south is in an environment anywhere near the origional bog conditions. So I think it can be used as an organic amendment in certain situations, like growing or blueberries in Dallas. It's not fair to say because peat bogs don't favor a lot of microbial activity that a mixture of peat in alkaline soil presumably with compost and other amendments it is antimicrobial and therefore not organic because the conditions are just so different. I do think that the slow breakdown of peat that is added to soil is an advantage in certain situations, like the azaleas in Dallas. It is just like we say with all organic amendments, slow release. That's exactly what is needed in an alkaline buffered soil, the prolonged addition of acid to keep the soil from being to alkaline so that the plants can actually absorb the nutrients they need. Something that brakes down too quickly, especially in high heat, would only help the plant for maybe a season while I believe you get 3-5 years with peat. Oh,I looked up the meat preservation, which you and I briefly discussed in a previous post, and the articles I read said that peat plus salt was used; which is a really more like making jerky :) U5, urea doesn't come from blood and blood meal is not the exact same thing as sold in 'chem fert' bags. Blood meal does not equal urea from blood and Urea nitrogen does not equal nitrogen from blood; urea is not a protein. I think something is confused on this point. Urea is synthesized chemicaly from carbon dioxide and ammonia. Urea isn't obtained from blood. If there is anything more than small levels of urea in the blood then you have gout or kidney problems. Urea is filtered out by the kidneys and concentrated in urine, like you said. However, the blood is primarly protein so basically it would be like applying any other protein meal to the soil (ie soybean meal). Proteins are made up of amino acids many of which should be able to be directly taken up by the soil bacteria and plants. As you said, Proteins are broken down to urea but it happens as the protein is used up in organisms. Blood meal should contain other minor elements like iron that would be good additions to the soil. I agree that urea is naturally occuring, and I'm personally on the fense, I prefer not to use urea because it is highly purified and therefor doesn't have the potential to add as many components to my soil.

My raised bed garden is about 13 feet square and surrounded by stacked bricks... can not remember the name now but they have plastic tabs in the back holding them together with a 14x10 inch cap. They work great and I can walk on them when I am working. I live in Chandler and have never had a problem with the heat but I keep the garden pretty wet. the price of brick is higher on the front end but they will last forever and look very nice. I took about 10 inches of dirt out from the bottom and put in all new soil. It was a long time ago but I know it was a lot. I add steer manure every year but need to add another 5 bags of soil, do not know where it is going. Every time I turn the garden over with the shovel the level gets back up near the top of the bricks. The soil is amazing... if I step in where I have worked my foot sinks about 6 inches.

This article should answer a lot of your questions. The book covers them in more detail as well. http://www.squarefootgardening.com/html/body_mix_full.html