raised rows in raised planter boxes

[california_grown]

A friend recently mention she gets much bigger crops with raised rows. I just planted my Fall garden from seeds yesterday & made small raised rows in my planter boxes. Is this ok? beneficial? a bad idea?
it's too late now since all the seeds are in the ground already....but wondering if I made a mistake

[gumbo2176]

Are her raised rows in a raised bed garden or are they like mine and rowed up on ground in a more typical garden. I can understand her saying that if she has a regular garden as it is beneficial to aid in drainage, especially in my area where we get lots of rainfall.

Personally, I don't really see where this would be beneficial in a raised bed since you are already higher above ground level to begin with. But, that is just my opinion. That said, I don't see where it would hurt anything either except maybe requiring a bit more watering.

[california_grown]

ok- thank you. & yes, she has a ground garden.
I wasn't sure and couldnt get in contact with her to know if I should do this with my raised beds. I hope it does no harm

[gumbo2176]

I can't see it doing any harm except requiring just a bit more work on your part to make the rows. It may limit your growing capacity to some degree by making rows. If you just leave it flat, you can plant things like lettuce, spinach, swiss chard, etc. fairly close to each other and turn that whole box into wall to wall salad greens.

In a couple weeks when I put in my leafy salad green seeds, I'll flatten the top of the row to 24" and plant 3 rows of seeds and thin as needed when they are a few inches tall. When the plants take off, the entire top of the row is just chock full of various lettuces, bitter greens, arugula, spinach and chard.

[garden5]

One thing to keep in mind is that when you are growing in containers, you don't want to grow in dirt. So you should make the rows in potting mix. Also, don't over-water them, since the mound would erode and fall right off the sides of the containers . That's the main difference between containers and the ground: a 90 degree drop off.