Melissia,
Good question...I have a new raised bed this year too so I'll be watching for these answers along with you.
Cindy

Melissia,

A lot depends on your soil and your water table. For example, if you live on the shores of a lake--or fairly close to a lake, or if you live very close to a river, you probably have a fairly high water table underground and raised beds would be more important for you. If you have slow-draining clay, then raised beds would be more important. On the other hand, if your soil drains very well, raised beds are not as important.

There's only a few plants that I think really have to be in a raised bed to ensure a good harvest and, for me, those few would be tomatoes, peppers, carrots and other root crops except all potatoes, and some herbs that require well-drained soil. I have grown potatoes in clay and in sand and they do well in either one. Sweet potatoes grow better in sandy soil than in clay, so if your soil is very heavy clay, you might want to put them in a raised bed.

I also like to plant bush beans in a raised bed, but they produce perfectly fine at grade level too. It's just that my "good soil" is in the raised beds.

I don't know if there is anything you should not put in raised beds. However, if I have a choice, I'd put most cool season plants at grade level because the soil at grade level often stays cooler than that in raised beds. (With a thick layer of mulch, though, you can keep the soil in raised beds cool.) If you grow rhubarb, it probably does better at grade level for that reason. (In our climate, it does better in part shade too.)

I don't know if this info will help any, but in my raised beds I usually have tomatoes, peppers, onion, garlic, eggplant, radishes, carrots, broccoli, cabbage, bush beans and sometimes cucumbers and melons. The broccoli and cabbage doesn't have to be in a raised bed, but I put it in a raised bed where it can be replaced in late June by fall tomato plants. Otherwise, I'll just get carried away and put spring tomato plants in that bed and then not have the room in that bed for fall tomato plants. : )

At grade level, I usually have potatoes and sweet potatoes (well, actually they are below ground, but you know what I mean), sweet corn, artichokes, winter squash and pumpkins, okra, black-eyed peas and other southern peas like crowder peas and cream peas, sometimes cucumbers and melons, pole beans and all greens like spinach, lettuce, collards, etc.

Many herbs (though not all) go into my raised beds because most of them prefer well-drained soil.

The only vegetable that I really, really, really think must be in raised beds is tomatoes. Sometimes even raised beds cannot save our tomato plants from an extra-heavy rainy spell. In 2004 and 2007 we had in excess of 10" of rain in one month and even the tomatoes in the raised beds suffered severely from having waterlogged roots, although they didn't suffer as much as they plants that were at grade level.

If you have a high water table, you probably want to grow your melons at grade level because excess moisture can ruin the flavor of the melons--it literally waters down the flavor and also can cause the melons to split or crack.

Dawn

Thanks Dawn -- I have no idea on my water table, where do you find out about that?

I am by the lake. . .

Are you on higher ground than the lake? Lower? Equal? Usually, if you have a high water table in your neighborhood, you know it. Some signs of a high water table (or really slow-draining soil, or a combination of both) include: basements or cellars have to have sump pumps running to keep the water out, bar ditches never really completely drain and always have water sitting in them instead of draining (and sometimes have crawdads as residents), and you hit water every time you dig a hole with a post hole digger. In addition, in-ground swimming pools are much harder to install as are tornado shelters. You also might have excessive numbers of trees that grow in very wet soil.

You might be able to find water table data through the Oklahoma Water Resource Board or Geological Service, your local agriculture extension agent, or county commissioner or by googling your county or city or geographical region of Oklahoma along with the words water table.. I've never gone looking for the data, because a friend of ours is on the county water board and he tells me what I need to know about our area.

If you've dug around in your yard quite a bit planting trees and putting in fences and stuff and never hit water, I'm betting you don't have a high water table.

Thanks

Also yesterday I bought a patio tomato plant that I'll just grow in a container -- If I mix basically "Mel's Mix" -- what else would you suggest I add to the mix?