Question to Greeneyes and Psalm 73:
#1 For those who are not familiar with raised beds, what is the depth of top soil in your beds ?
#2 Did you use a plastic/ polyethelyne liner to minimze evaportion / drainage run off ? If the bed starts to flood, you can always puncture holes in the plastic to maintain .
#3 What kind of wood/plastic/block structure did you use to construct your raised bed ?
#4 Any suggestions you would make/changes .. in hindsight ?
I am looking for suggestions from any others who have experinece with 'raised bed gardening' for the sake of any gardeners or 'lurkers' or other who are interested but havent asked .
Thanks so much TIK for your questions. I have a tendency to be overly prolific with words, so I make myself try to be brief and often this results in leaving out a few things, that might be of use. LOL
1,2,3. I started out with just 3” of Mel’s Mix for plants with shallow roots. I loosened the soil first, and turned over the top soil so that the grass was on the bottom. Then I put layers of news papers down (at least 5).
Then dug a little trench for the landscape timbers (make sure they are not treated with anything that is bad for you).
These first gardens were on a hillside, so the gardens are stair stepped down and are 3x8 foot plus one 3x4 foot. Hubby actually did this stuff for me, but I was the director, so I get to claim credit (like all my bosses used to do).
Then he added another layer of timbers. These were anchored with gigantic nails that are about 1/2 inch by a foot long. Then we added the Mel’s mix. We have added various components and additional Mel’s mix each year and we now have about 6 inches of good loam. Last year Hubby added another timber.
My goal is to get a little more than a foot of good soil. Not just for planting purposes, but to get the timber wall tall enough to sit on once in a while as I plant.
4. No. I wouldn’t, but I wish I had had the money to build it as tall/deep as I want it to be-But that was not in the Budget!
The 2cnd year, Hubby built another set along a carnahan fence row. Problem is that was too close to the Walnut Tree, but neither of us knew about the toxin it would produce. So I would have built the 2cnd batch else where, had I known. Also the postage stamp orchard would have gone elsewhere.
We can plant some things there such as corn, sorghum, beans for example.
Right now we have some stumps in the front of our side lot. Can you say UGLY? What I am thinking about is making a bed using concrete blocks. Planting something like Amaranth that gets tall and looks striking. Then plant some shorter edible flowers in the blocks cavities, or maybe some alpine strawberries. That’s for next year’s budget though.
I dig down about a foot and place the box on it - no liner.
I make my own soil - keep two 4x4x4 chicken wire compost bins in the way-back - fill em' with ground-up leaves, coffee filters, egg shells, etc (and some horse manure) - this is what goes into the box gardens - takes about 6 months - rich and black, full of worms.
So right now the soil is about 5 inches below the top of the 2x10, so that gives me about (hmmm, 10 - 5 + 12), about 17 inches of soil - drains just fine.
The untreated wood lasts about 5 years, or so - when it rots through just nail another 2x10 in - nuthin' fancy.