Raised Beds

            Installing raised garden beds is a good way to make your life easier. Having raised garden beds is like raising the ground up to meet you. You spend less time stretching and bending or having to get down on your hands and knees. For the older gardener or if you just to make things easier, raised beds are the way to go.

            That is, after you have built your raised beds. It’s not a simple task or a cheap one, but it’s not that difficult. It’s easier than container gardening, which I could never seem to master. Start small with a custom built raised bed that fits your space. Remember that you want to it to be a manageable size. Too wide and you can’t reach across it. Too deep and it will require too much soil to fill it.

            Most beginner beds are 10-12 inches deep. That’s not too bad as most of your roots are going to go much deeper than that. I would suggest that if you really want to keep from straining too much, you go 2 feet deep as a minimum. Also, don’t go wider than two inches or you will have to stretch quite a bit. Your first raised bed shouldn’t be too big or you will be overwhelmed.

            The structural material can vary. If you have the means, stone or landscaping brick is very nice. However, it is very expensive and heavy to work with. I prefer pressure-treated 1x6’s or even railroad ties. You can use a plywood bottom or just use landscape fabric across the bottom. Hand-water the bed or tap into a sprinkler line either dedicate a sprinkler to the bed or attach a drip irrigation system.

The soil you fill it with is also important. You can buy some prepared garden soil. Depending on the size of the bed, it could get real expensive real fast. You can use clean fill dirt, but you really don’t know what’s in the soil including herbicides or weed seeds. Go with a layer of cheap, bagged mulch with a layer of good Kellogg or Miracle-Gro garden soil mix.

            There are some great Kindle books on building raised beds. Kindle books don’t require a Kindle. You can download the free Kindle reader app for your phone or computer.