Very nice, Im at the same stage you are. I kinda wish now that i would have raised up off the ground. I just got all my beds built. How did those peppers do last year. Im looking to grow some real hot ones.

I moved my blog. Please check out jmaellis-sfg.blogspot.com

I am interested in others opinions, so please fire away.

Any particular reason you have the beds elevated like that?
Having to use a wheelchair due to a spinal cord injury my raised beds are 12" high x 24"wide. I found that works fine for me. Having them raised like yours I forsee having to replace the soil in the furture as it will not support the weight of continuously added mulch/admendments and the veggies themself.
Plus thats a lot of hand tilling each year. I know that part too well as I have sections that are trellised that I must hand till(total of 40feet).

Hello northhadley and thank you for reading my bolg.

The top of my planting beds are 24" off of the ground. I have them off of the ground so I do not have to squat or kneel to tend to the garden.

At 24" off of the ground the top of the beds are just about at the top my knees. I would have preferred that the top of the beds be 30" off of the ground, but my wife is about 10" shorter than I, and 24" is perfect for her (about the lower portion of her hips) to stand and tend to the garden.

I'm not sure why you think that having the beds elevated will result in having to replace the soil. I think you may have meant that I may have to replace the floor. If that is actually what you meant, I'll address that. I used 5/8" thick X 8" wide X 24" long redwood boards to construct the floor (cut from a 6' long fence board). The redwood is strong and rot resistant. I cut the 6' boards into 2' lengths and placed them in the planter side-by-side widthwise (if that it the correct terminology) rather than lengthwise. Because they are only 2' long, there is no sagging and they are quite solid. Now if I had left the boards 6' long and ran them lengthwise, without additional cross support along the length of the planter, the boards would sag and probably over time would probably collapse. This planer only holds 6 cubic feet of soil (or Mel's Mix), and the weight, even if wet, isn't a problem, no matter how much I have to add over time, it still will only hold 6 cubic feet of soil. The additional weight of the plants themselves is inconsequential. The heavy fruits and vegetables will be trellised, so their weight will be borne by the trellis, not the floor of the planter. I imagine that some years down the road (my personal guess is about 5 years) I will probably have to remove all the soil and inspect the floor. The beauty is that I can just replace the boards that need replacing. Even if I had to replace the entire floor, that would only be three 6' long boards, cut to 2' lengths. The cost would be about $10.

Tilling is also not a problem. The planters only have a surface area of 12 sq. ft. X 6" deep. The bed can be tilled by hand, top to bottom, end to end, in just a few minutes.

You mention that you use a wheel chair. I imagine that this type of "elevated" raised bed would be perfect for you. The bottom of the bed might need to be a little higher then mine (the bottom of my beds are 16" off of the ground), you could then slide under the bed to tend to the garden. Mel has a picture of exactly this on his website:

www.squarefootgardening.com/html/stripes/ony/3.html

Hello J

I know what you mean about the high cost of vermiculite. However, I have added a little to each season's soil to help spread the cost over time. With my beds raised similar to yours, the extra vermiculite greatly improves both water and nutrient retention. And, just as important, aeration. Reaching the 1/3 mark of the total volume being vermiculite is where you oughtta shoot for.

The only thing I would do differently would be to eliminate the purchased "soils". I would try to find differing types of organics, such as "Humus with Manure", "Organic Compost", "Kow" and any locally obtained material suitable for composting.

After many years in the landscaping business and, gardening my home vegetables most of my life, I've found that most purchased "soils" were mostly darkened sand. Most, contained very little compost. Or, if they were composed of really good stuff, the suckers were so expensive, I could not afford them. I must admit though, I've never heard of the brands you mentioned.

My veggies grow in 1/3 vermiculite and the rest, several kinds of organic composts. Some purchased, some scrounged.

Five years prior to our place being washed away by hurricane Katrina, we built my wife's landscape beds out of 140 bags of Home Depot's "Humus with Manure" only. No vermiculite. For nearly 5 years that bed literally exploded with vigor! The beds were watered with a nice inexpensive micro-irrigation setup. And the only other thing my wife did to those beautiful beds was, to VERY occasionally spray them with one of those hose-end jug doo-hickeys that use the blue powder.

We had just reached the point where we were gonna have to add more volume to the really highly-built beds. The compost was slowly decomposing and needed replenishing. I never thought it would last over 4 years before needing work.

We were gonna use a variety of organic stuff as we topped-off the beds this time though.

jmaellis I understand now your height of the beds.Works for you folks great thats what its all about.
As far as that style for me in the wheelchair wouldn't work.I have found that the more you keep moving and bending in different ways the better it is for general health.Besides try to harvest trellised cukes or any veggie that is trellised while sitting down.You would need Gogo Gadget Arms to reach.
Other problems are getting under the "raised table" and not getting dirt all over you,space needed to turn and get around if you have more than one elevated bed and appplying compost/soil/watering/and so on when you have to bring those things from ground level up to above lap level it just isn't an easy task. Been there and tried it.A raised bed to the height that is within your bending zone is the proper height to have, be in a wheelchair or as you have explained for your gardening style.
While getting back to gardening from my injury I was looking for easier ways to garden. I was using the "Vermont Hippie" method (aka french intensive gardening)which I was doing from the wheelchair leaning over and rubbing my ribs raw(family yelled at me for that)I kept finding this elevated method being suggested. I think that for a very small group of people it works fine but I know for myself and many others there are a lot of problems with it.One being startup cost and other problems I wont get into.
I feel that Mel and others when coming up with this method did have their heart in the right place but didn't try it themselves nor think out who it would work for. Not everyone in a wheelchair is receiving support checks or have personal care attendants. I dont want to sound angry but there are a lot of normal folks out there who just happen to be in a wheelchair.
Bring on the good weather I want my veggies!!! :)

northhadley,

There are people in wheelchairs who garden with this method successfully. There will always be exceptions, those where the system is not ideal for the user.

Can you provide photos of your SFG?