tdump
Cool Member
Posts: 91
Joined: Sat Jul 11, 2015 10:40 am
Location: US North carolina peidmont

raised beds for 2018

Well it has been a while since I was here. Life gets in the way.
Last years gardening was not so good and my heart and gut was not in it because of some personal situations. But I am past it and found part of the reason for lousy crops from my raised beds was TREE ROOTS sucking the soil dry! :evil:
So with alot of effort all soil was removed and the boxes were physically moved and not knowing or being able to find anyone who did know what to put down under them to prevent roots from getting in, I tried something I had laying around. Tyvek house wrap. 3 layers of it under each bed.
Plus I moved the large 1.
Since I was shoveling and handling every molecule of soil,I decided to sift it as I put it back in. I had filled them with random dirt and everything else and there was small rocks and chunks of wood and such. Well if it couldn't go thru a 1/2 hole in screen wire,it got cast out!
A bit of fertilizer was mixed in the soil as I put it in the beds and all seems well.
I felt like if I sifted it and added some more Perlite,it would eliminate any need for tillage as it shouldn't clump or get hard.
Now it can sit a couple months and I can plant.I wanted to get it done last fall but didn't have time.
The first photo shows 1 of many roots that was in the bottom of 1 of the beds. Some were larger.
The second photo shows my sifting screen.To save a small amount of work I put the sifter on the tractor loader bucket and filled the bucket with soil.I also mixed my extra perlite,peat moss and fertilyzer in the soil while it was in the bucket.Then I could drive the tractor over and dump it into the bed and rack it level.
The 4th shows my 2 large raised beds and the 2 real small 1's I will be using for onions.
Attachments
DSC00738.JPG
DSC00737.JPG
DSC00736.JPG
DSC00735.JPG

User avatar
rainbowgardener
Super Green Thumb
Posts: 25279
Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2009 6:04 pm
Location: TN/GA 7b

Looks good! I don't know what that house wrap stuff is, but if it isn't porous, I hope you poked holes in it. Otherwise your raised beds will fill up and turn into bathtubs, drown everything in them. They look very deep. Is there a reason you made them extra deep?

tdump
Cool Member
Posts: 91
Joined: Sat Jul 11, 2015 10:40 am
Location: US North carolina peidmont

Well the bottom board is sitting on the ground and along the edges there are gaps about 1/4 or so wide water can run out the sides if it gets in there alot.The ground is not perfectly level so the straight board along uneven ground makes for the small cracks to let water out. I am not sure what the tyvek is made of either. I know when I was digging out the soil from the boxes the old grey fabric stuff I had put in there was decayed and in chunks and had roots all in it.
I made them deep for good roots and high enough I can work without bending over alot.My back was injured in a vehicle accident and bending over hurts sometimes. this has it so I can just lean a bit and work.

User avatar
rainbowgardener
Super Green Thumb
Posts: 25279
Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2009 6:04 pm
Location: TN/GA 7b

That makes sense! Sorry about your injury, but yes lifting your beds makes it much easier to use them, in those circumstances.

Another time, if you want more and don't necessarily need them for very big plants (think onions, lettuce, spinach, peppers, etc) you might think about something like this:

Image

There are various styles of these table gardens that you can buy for a little over $100, or if you are as handy as you seem to be, you can make your own. That brings your garden up to you, without requiring SO much soil to fill. The trouble with just making your beds deeper and deeper is that then they require literal tons of soil to fill them up.

tdump
Cool Member
Posts: 91
Joined: Sat Jul 11, 2015 10:40 am
Location: US North carolina peidmont

I was actually wondering if and how that could be done! Thank you!.
You are right,I have plenty of wood, steel and bolts and screws and that can be built in the shop on a rainy day and put outside and filled on a sunny day.. I WILL be looking into this setup! Thanks again for that tip. I want more raised beds and this is a method that would work.
I would guess there was enough dirt I handled 1 shovel full at the time to have filled the old Ford dump truck I sold last year.
And I am already thinking "mobil"! as in on wheels but with forks on the tractor, lift and move as needed.

User avatar
applestar
Mod
Posts: 30514
Joined: Thu May 01, 2008 7:21 pm
Location: Zone 6, NJ (3/M)4/E ~ 10/M(11/B)

Oh, so maybe use pallets or skids as bottoms? Then they would already have the necessary structure to insert the forklift and pick up. If you don’t mind the plastic ones, they won’t decay from the moisture....

tdump
Cool Member
Posts: 91
Joined: Sat Jul 11, 2015 10:40 am
Location: US North carolina peidmont

Thanks for the tips.

bigtony
Newly Registered
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Dec 12, 2018 8:30 am

rainbowgardener wrote:That makes sense! Sorry about your injury, but yes lifting your beds makes it much easier to use them, in those circumstances.
Lifting beds is such a genius idea! I've got a kind of bed, but it stays on the ground and yes, not very handy to use.

Soil sorting that I see on one of the photos is also a great idea I didnt thought of. Thanks! Find this very helpful, and going to try make my own raised bed.

PaulF
Greener Thumb
Posts: 910
Joined: Tue Nov 09, 2010 5:34 pm
Location: Brownville, Ne

Nice set-up. We have also gone to raised beds for many of our garden vegetables. We used what we had available for the containers. They don't look as nice as yours but still do the job.
Attachments
IMG_7240.jpg
IMG_7239.jpg
Last edited by PaulF on Mon Dec 17, 2018 2:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
rainbowgardener
Super Green Thumb
Posts: 25279
Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2009 6:04 pm
Location: TN/GA 7b

very pretty, nicely done containers. :)



Return to “Raised Bed Gardening”