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Started on the raised bed project

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wordwiz

To refresh: I have a special project for this year's county fair - to grow a variety of veggies in a raised bed. I started on the project today. Laid 36 linear feet, two feet high. (That's more than 14,000 pounds of weight, since I had to load them on a truck, then drive it to the right area and unload them. Way more, by about 13,750 pounds than I am use to hoisting in a day!).

Here's a view of the inside. The ground is not sand or dirt but asphalt:

inside.jpg


This bed is on the south side of a building (about 6' from it) and will get at least 12 hours of direct light, minimum.

I'm wondering if I should line the bottom with newspapers, just to help hold moisture during the hot months?

Mike
 
Sounds like it's short term anyway so just lay in wooden pallets and throw some cardboard or cloth or weed mat etc over the pallets = drainage.

You will need drainage unless it's on a slope.
 
It has a very slight slope. But with the soil mix (I'm leaning toward 1/3 dirt, 1/3 compost and 1/3 humus) and being two feet deep, I'm thinking drainage will not be a big deal. At least I hope not, since the blocks are just laying on the ground or each other and not cemented in place.

Mike
 
I'd think that, even with the blocks laid directly on the asphalt, that water would still be able to flow out between the blocks and the asphalt. I don't know that I'd worry about it that much, especially if you're just using it for a season.
Good looking lay- I'm guessing a snapline on the asphalt to start? Lotta frickin' brick to be slinging for just one season's growing, man!!
 
Hinky,

It may or may not be a one season thing. I'm going with the idea it will be longer term project and hope to sow garlic, asparagus and horseradish this fall. But hey, if it turns out to be a one year thing, I'll haul the blocks up to my house and use them in the dead area of my back yard! A nice raised bed plus a compost bin!

Mike
 
I'm gonna be having a crack at some raised garden beds the next grow season. Found a product called eWood, which is made from recycled ink toner cartridges.

http://www.closetheloop.com.au/ewood/

I had a look at a few various options, for example using hay bales as the edging of your garden beds, also concrete or cinder blocks, but I think I like the idea of the eWood better.
 
I was quoted the following:

0.200m X 0.025m ($12.50 per length - 2.4m per length)

I figured to make a 2.4m x 1.2m x 0.4m, it would take 7 lengths of eWood (the 7th piece is cut up to be used as stabilising pieces), it would cost $87.50 per garden bed. I'd be looking at doing 6 garden beds.

I then did a quick search on ebay, and found I can get 0.39m x 0.19m concrete cinder blocks. To get sort of the same sized garden bed, I'd need 18 blocks @ $1.90 per block. That turns out to be just over $70 per garden bed.

If I used the concrete cinder blocks, would I have to worry about cementing them all together, or could I just loosely arrange them? Using the eWood would probably look better, but I fear that if I ever move house, it would be a pain to get the wooden garden bed out of the ground.
 
Mike your raised bed looks nice . Very clean and in order. In my raise beds , which bottom out on my lawn , I didn't do anything to promote more drainage. When I built the first ones I figured if my lawn has drained fine for years my beds should too. My lawn can hold water at times , because
the ground is moist if we get a killer down pour it does take a while for it to soak in ..... looks like a rice paddy for several hours . But that's not often here.

I'm pretty sure the hard pan base ..... asphalt ..... will make it so you can see water run off under your cinder blocks. It has no place else to go and water doesn't need space to run off .

Several things to think about IMHO is your bed is still a garden ....... just above ground level. You have several feet of soil from the top to the bottom , same as any garden, more or less . So the top will get dry before it does a foot or more down.

Now people will have different thoughts about this. This is just mine. And several factors come into play. Are your nutrients worked into the soil to begin with ? Are are you going to be feeding when you water each time like you might in 5 gal bucket ? If you're feeding every time you water then seeing a good deal of run off is probably a safe thing to stop a salts build up. You might not want a huge run off every time you water if you've already added everything at the start .

And if you ever wonder how damp the soil is deeper ..... get a core sample. Because your soil will be so loose so can take a piece of PVC pipe and push it down to different levels. Knock out the soil from different levels and see what it looks like .

Good luck and peace ,
P. Dreadie
 
P.,

Here's my plan and everyone is welcome to nit-pick it for even the tiniest detail I have overlooked.

Fill the bottom 6-8" with just plain dirt, probably mostly clay but it may be similar to creek-bottom dirt. For the top 2/3 (16") use a combo of dirt, humus and compost, along with some peat moss.

Use rain water. Set up a collection system where I would have probably 1500 square feet of space to fill barrels. I can measure the amount used to water the bed so the plants get a minimum of 1/2" of rain per week, at least during the fruiting stage. Use four rows of soaker hose, one a few inches away from the walls and the other two about a foot apart. Since the fair has electrical outlets next to the bed, I may use Tomato-tone, add a bag of it to a barrel of water and then use an air pump to mix it up.

Fertilize infrequently. The reality is plants do not need a lot of fertilizer - I found this out growing tobacco and a garden 30-45 years ago! I plan to incorporate a decent amount of "new" compost material - green cuttings, leaves, etc., into the mix. I would love to have about 30 pounds of red worms to throw in also!

I will post pics - good or bad, of how this progresses!

Mike
 
Mike it sounds like you've pondered this project pretty well. I wasn't , I hope , nit-pickin' things. Just saying a few things about what I learned last year in my first raised beds.

It will be cool to see your progress .

Peace,
P. Dreadie
 
P.,

You weren't but I won't mind if anybody does! I've grown in dirt and in containers but never in a raised bed. I'm sure there are things I've never considered let alone planned for.

Mike
 
I think you'll end up liking raised beds. Your soil won't get packed down from feet. You'll see why us old men like them ..... no bending and getting in the dirt. You can see underneath the leaves for bugs . And when you plant a little close the plants act sort of like a mulch and weeds don't grow as easily.

Peace,
P. Dreadie
 
The weather has dried out for the last few days and then was my day to work on the raised bed. The bottom third is now filled, with creek-bottom top soil. Literally! The guy used a bobcat loader to crape up dirt from next to the creek, brought it up and dumped it in the bed. Then I tried to spread it out, but some of it was in huge chunks with lots of roots, not to mention a tad on the wet side. And it had some rocks as well as other foreign crap in it but I don't see it being a problem. There will be at least 16" of other stuff added. I'm thinking about 1/2 compost, 1/4 humus and 1/4 good topsoil, perhaps with a bit of peat moss.

Ideally, this will be done by tax day, which would give it a month to sit and I can rotary till it twice. I usually try to fertilize the ground in early May, preferably with something like 10-10-10 and then extra bit of 33-0-0. About a month after planting, I usually try to "sidedress" the plants, that is, add extra Nitrate next to the plants, but I would like to use Compost Tea. But trying to find enough to cover 120 linear feet of plants may be hard!

Here's part of the bed:

41raised1.jpg



Here's a long view of the project:

41raised2.jpg


I should have used a chalk line but I figure I can get more plants in a crooked row!

Mike
 
Mike, P. has it right
.P. Dreadie
"I think you'll end up liking raised beds. Your soil won't get packed down from feet. You'll see why us old men like them ..... no bending and getting in the dirt. You can see underneath the leaves for bugs . And when you plant a little close the plants act sort of like a mulch and weeds don't grow as easily."

I use composted humas/cow manure mix,peat ,garden soil from Home Depot (only because it is close to home)1/2 peat.1/4 soil,1/4 compost mix.the higher the bed the easier to work it.:cheers:

Old guys rule!
 
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