Planning a Vegetable Garden

Posts Tagged ‘Earthbox’

A raised bed vegetable garden is a good option for vegetable gardening in cooler climate zones, or any zone where you have a thin or rocky soil type.   The soil in raised beds warms up quicker, as well as provides more depth for rocky garden soil.

Raised beds are also good if your soil drains poorly.  Even an extra 6 or more inches of drainage in a raised bed can be the difference of your vegetables’ roots breathing or drowning.

Raised Bed Benefits

Do you want to grow bigger, healthier vegetables?  Would you like to be able to utilize better the space for the land you have (especially if you are doing small space vegetable gardening)?  If your answer is “Yes!”, then you should consider incorporating a raised bed design into your garden plot.

With a raised bed, the plant roots have extra room to grow and are more likely to produce a good harvest than vegetables grown in a crowded, shallow space.

Making a Raised Bed

To construct a raised bed vegetable garden you need the following:

• A raised frame (wood, rock or brick) to hold in the extra soil.
• Extra soil, which needs to be nice and loamy (check out the types of soil post for more information on loamy soil).

The width of the raised bed depends on how large you desire the garden to be.  A common height is between 12 to 21 inches, but it can be more or less (but no less than 6 inches).  For instance, some people like it knee height, others like it almost hip height, so they don’t have to bend over as much.

You can use regular garden dirt that has been mixed with amendments such as compost, peat moss, and manure for your raised bed soil.  If you have the money to do so, you can buy a combination of top soil and compost and fill the entire bed with it.  Unless you have a very small raised bed, though, that might get expensive.

FYI, your raised bed soil preparation involves raking the soil level.  This prevents low spots or places where the water can pool around the plant and thus hold excessive moisture. If after you water the first time you see depressed areas, you know you need to rake or even add more soil to those areas.

If you’re interested in making a raised bed, here are some raised bed kits you might find interesting.

Alternative Ideas for a Raised Bed Vegetable Garden

What are some other possible ideas for raised beds?  Glad you asked!

Here’s one — you can try using old tires as containers.  The morning sun heats the rubber, giving your plants warmth all day and night long; especially nice in cooler climates.  Similar to a raised bed vegetable garden, the tires will also shed water more quickly, preventing your plants from sitting in water all day.  Naturally, tires for a large truck will give you more raised space than tires for a sub-compact. 

Another idea is using an EarthBox, which is basically a huge container that also will water your vegetables automatically.  While I’ve never tried one, I have some friends who have and they swear by them.

Any way you create them, raised beds make good gardening sense.  Although it’s a little bit of work to set up at first, you’ll reap the benefits come harvest time!