Topic: Traditional Gardening vs Raised Beds

[simon404]

I'm on my hobbyhorse again! If you'd like to join the debate please have a look here:

http://simonsallotment.blogspot.com/2009/03/how-i-garden.html

By the way my beef is with the gardening press not raised-bed gardeners! If you do use raised beds I'd be interested to know what influenced your decision. It would also be sweet if you could leave your comments on my blog rather than/or as well on here.

Cheers' Simon  :)

[Tee Gee]

Hi Simon,

Tried to post on your blog but had a bit of difficulty so have copied it to here;

What is a raised bed??

As I understand it; a raised bed is somewhere between knee high and waist high not those beds with a 6 inch timber kerb around a bed of soil.

I think of the latter as just a means of keeping a plot tidy.

http://www.thegardenersalmanac.co.uk/Data/Soil-Raised%20beds/Raised%20beds.htm

Personally I think it is rather a waste of time, I would rather dig my soil deeper and improve that than put a bit of expensive timber round it.

I would say that my soil is equivalent to an 18" raised bed but I have gone down rather than up and I am quite happy with my return per square yard of produce.

This is due to single & double spit digging; http://www.thegardenersalmanac.co.uk/Data/Allotments/Double%20&%20Triple%20digging.htm

This is a typical season on my allotment; http://www.thegardenersalmanac.co.uk/Slide%20Shows/Allotment/allotment.html

I hope you don't mind my comments and like you, I respect people like dinzie's predicament of shallow soil, but I wish people would not call a bed 6" high a 'raised bed'

Perhaps "shallow bed" would be a more appropriate name to differentiate it from "deep bed" and "raised bed" gardening.

Tee Gee

ps Feel free to copy this into your blog if you want.

[Flunky]

Mine are bits wood around a bit of dirt. I will call them "shallow beds".

The only reason I did this is for me its easier to say "dig over that square" than look at a bloomin great area of earth and think "thats a lot". Psycological for me and i quite like them. Keeps it nice and tidy to boot.

Hadnt really given it any thought.

[Tulipa]

It's an interesting debate...

I have both and like them for different reasons.   At home I have 7 8' x 4' shallow raised beds and they are good as I never walk on them so they never become compacted and very easily dig over for the new season.  At the allotment I started off thinking I would do the same but I actually just have a path down the middle as I can get so much more use of the space and am not governed by the size of a bed to limit the size of a crop.  I can make different paths each year depending where I want them, and I can really get stuck in with the digging. Being heavy clay the shallow beds are useful, but I can cope now with digging the clay.

They both have their advantages and disadvantages I suppose and it depends on which you are happy with.

Sorry, I can see both sides of the argument, but I think I prefer the versatility of the allotment.  The shallow beds were fine when I was just growing a few veg but now I am doing it seriously I like the allotment better.

T.

[Suzanne]

I have beds which are 1.2m wide and up to 7m long. There is no wood around them - they are never walked on and they are seperated by 0.5m grass paths.

The drainage on my plots is such that I don't need to raise the soil level significantly - but just digging over and adding compost/manure etc means that they are about 4-6 cm above path level.

It just helps with my rotation.

[Robert_Brenchley]

There are specific circumstances where they're well worthwhile. For instance, my plot is by a stream, and gets waterlogged in winter. The result is that, while I haven't noticed any problems growing veg, there are flowers, lilies for instance, that I can only grow in containers. A raised bed would solve this. Some plots are wetter than mine, and raised beds would make an enormous difference there. Someone who recently took on one of the worst plots has bought several tons of topsoil and is doing exactly that. On another plot, it would be a waste of money and effort.

[taurus]

 I'm on pure clay here in Swindon.  Before I was living in an area that was chalk.
So you can imagine the shock of trying to dig this ground.  Despite a monumentale amount of horse manure that as been lavished on the ground its just seems to disappear over the winter months. (Australia ;D )  And of course we all no what the weathers been like the last 2 years.  So last year I put a few raised beds in, just to see if it made any difference.  That was the only place I had any success as everything else just rotted in the ground. Used scaffold planks. 
 Dug down in the ground to plant some tree's on Tuesday the holes filled up with water straight a way.  So for me its going to be more raised beds as I can afford/skip dive more timber.  I'm going to leave 50% of my ground and do it the traditional way for a couple more years and see if things improve. 

[Psi (Pronounced 'Si'!)]

I was brought up with watching my father grow in a 'traditional' way NOT using raised beds.  I have no ideological view on this and have a combination of raised and 'traditional beds' - they are trad beds simply because I plan to build more raised beds as time goes on.

4 points:

TIME

I am a father of 2 in London, I leave for work at 7.30am and return mainly around 7.30pm. My wife has been unwell so any very 'physical' work is mine and mine only.  Time is of the essence and I estimate 2-3hrs a week is sensible for me.  Having raised beds breaks the plot into areas that are manageable (physically and psycologically).  They also require less digging in that I am not repeatedly digging one monolithic plot.  This saves time.

SPACE

watching my father work i realised that having 'walk ways' either side of each row of crops meant 50% of his plot was therefore a walk way.  I think it self evident that raised beds actually provide MORE growing space.  Interesting because some of the other plot holders on my site have commented that mine is 'all walk ways'! The irony.

SITE

My plot is on London clay and therefore the ground gets overly soggy in winter and then the clay 'sets' when baked in the sun.  By using raised beds I can create a top layer which has lots of organic material dug in which gives me a soil which is more 'friable'.  Added to this I then retain a clay-ish sub layer of a foot or more which retains some moisture in the drier seasons.  Having thought it through and used my noddle the raised bed fits the requirements to make the site work for me.

ROTATION

Clearly defined beds makes it simpler to record what crop was where and when.  Doing this I can look at this years planting and then plan next year's including a rotation scheme based on bed numbers.

So, the moral is...don't be ideologically opposed to anything, consider time and site and what you want to get from your plot.  If you are not fit and able then I suggest raised beds will certainly be of benefit. Hope this helps.

Psi

PS lose the hobbyhorse, life is too short my friend.

[beckydore]

I took over a plot last year that has a 'cartwheel' of beds going round the outside - 12 in total. I love the fact that you can dig a bed and feel like you have made a difference. Some of them are in great condition - others are not. I think the people before me had put compost on some in order to grow specific crops.

I have some beds which are dedicated. eg. one is rhubarb, another has asparagus in it (but can fit other items down the sides, one has strawberries down the sides. I grew beans in 2 last year and am thinking about removing the sides from them and having as one larger group.

My onions SHOULD all fit into one bed this year - will let you know once I've actually planted them.

My boyfriend thinks I should get rid of them.

My plot did flood last year so you couldn't actually walk on the pathways but I didn't lose any crops. I think psychologically it is great to know you have completed a bed... and they can look quite pretty in different colours!!

However, they are definitely better for the crops that don't need a lot of space between them.

Becky

[Jeannine]

I had both at the lotties , reasons for , some areas of my plots flood in heavy rain,but mostly because I was able to do some of the work while technically partially disabled, mine were up to  18inches, mostly about a foot. One lottie was completely flat which John took care of mostly simply because my back is fused and bending is almost impossible, I had to go on knees to get down to ground level and then rest on a hand, in the raised ones I could sit on the edge.

So I can see pros and cons for both and couldn't judge anyones choice really.

I did find the soil we filled them with made it very easy to grow carrotts and snips etc and we coulf tent them as needed so there were alot of plus points.On the other hand my squash did better with unrestricted areas of growth.

XX Jeannine

XX Jeannine

[GodfreyRob]

I'm a raised bed convert (happened about 20 years ago!).

I use stacked turf though for the 'walls' - cost £0 and lasts forever - just need a quick trim with the shears now and again.

Main advantage over 'flat beds' is the better drainage - warm up faster too in spring.
Deeper soil - plants closer together
Never tread on it so ground does not get compacted - so easier to weed.

[tonybloke]

the term 'traditional' gardening is misleading. until jethro tull invented the horse - drawn hoe, all gardening  was on a small - bed system. small - beds were ideal in towns, as the horse / oxen manure was dropped in the cities by the beasts of burden, and put onto narrow gardens beside the roads. only in england did we start to copy the commercial, large scale horticulturalists / farmers. the narrow beds, not walked on and compacted, are far more productive per square metre than open field growing. ;)

[Robert_Brenchley]

So many of our traditions are 19th-century inventions! I remember half the space on my father's allotment going to waste with all the unnecessary spacing between rows.

[simon404]

Hi again, I'd just like to say a big thankyou to everyone who took the time to read my post and those of you who've contributed to the debate by commenting both here and on my blog. As always you've  given me food for thought!

Good luck to us all I say, however we choose to garden  ;) 

PS Tee Gee, I've reproduced your comment on my blog - thanks for the links, very useful as ever.

[hellohelenhere]

I'm creating beds from a turfed (mostly with couch grass!) back garden, and have so far dug two; one is ground level, edged with brick, and the other is 'shallow' - it has a timber frame around it, 6" high at the most.
Since I'm having to dig out couch grass and stones from the soil, marking the edges of the plots is very helpful, so that I know what I've cleared and there is at least some impediment to the couch grass growing back in from the sides. I hope. Also, I'm putting the stones & pebbles on the pathways, and the bricks/timber should stop them from getting into the beds.

Having thought about it - and reading your blog! - I'm thinking that I might lose more than I'd gain by raising the beds any higher. I don't want the garden to be watering-dependent - if I 'improve' drainage too much it will be more trouble than it's worth. I have lovely loamy clay, full of worms, and no soggy areas, so I don't think it needs improving in terms of drainage.

For anyone who remembers that I was intending 'no dig' - well, there was no other way to get all that couch grass dealt with fast enough... :)

Having defined edges to the beds definitely helps psychologically, especially when starting a garden from scratch.