Raised Bed Gardening
Date: Sep 9th, 2007 12:10:15 pm - Subscribe
Mood: flabbergasted
Raise Bed Gardening is what a lot of people want to do, why? Raised Bed Gardening has a lot of advantages over normal gardening just think of the possibilities you have with it to design your garden, raised beds are perfect to create a beautiful visual effect in your own garden at home. In the next few paragraphs you will learn how to plan build and animate your own raised beds.
Lets for a moment put away the visual advantages of it, raised beds are just great. I used them for many years and still use them to grow a variety of different plants, I have a collection of herbs, tomatoes, potatoes, cottages and zuccinis in my garden on raised beds. In front of my porch are two very colorfull raised beds with all kinds of different flowers blossoming. You see you can grow everything in raised beds.
Though still alot of people have some problems with them. Well i always say preparation is essential for raised bed gardening. You have to know alot of things before you start out. First of all you have to plan where you want to put your raised beds. Be sure to select places with alot of sun especially if you want to grow vegetables. Herbs usually dont care about alot of sunlight though they still like 3h a day. The next thing to do is to specify which plants you want to put in which raised bed. This will be important for the size of the bed.
Now decided what you want to build your raised bed of, i suggest wood but you can also build it on stones, bricks or cement blocks. Make sure to have a good support if you want to elevate it. Usually i use stones for the bottom of the bed and Wood for the fence, or if i elevate it, strong wood for the bottom and some bricks to elevate it. I then of course drill some holes into the bottom to make sure its well drained. Dont drill too big holes though since the soil might get lost that way. Now for vegetables you will need a little bit bigger beds in width and length, go for 5 times 7 feet at least. Flowers and herbs can be put in everything from 1 to 1 feet to whatever you can imagine.
If you want to grow tomatoes or potatoes you will need a bed that is at leats 10 inch high, for cottages 7 inch is fine as well as for most flowers and herbs.
If you build your bed its time to mix the soil, use some soil from your yard add some potsoil and sand. Also try to find some compost either from your own composting or from the garden center. I also like to add some lime to it once a month. Once you planted the plants go and water them, put compost on them regulary and add some mulch to protect them.
If you followed me you will now be able to do some raised bed gardening on your own, good luck from my side just sent me an email if you have any questions.
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