Topic: link a bords

[Katinkka]

I really want to have raised beds on my allotment but my husband is useless at building and he never gets round to doing anything.  Sooo I need something easy and was thinking of using these.,  They seem fairly cheap.  Anyone have any experience of using this on an allotment?

[OliveOil]

I started digging my plot yesterday with the hope of having raised beds - without boards... but after 1 hour digging 1.8m x 1.2m i think i will give it away.  OH didnt want to help and whilst i was digging my little backside off I came home and he was down the pub!!!

Good luck!

[supersprout]

Hi Katinkka, I have seen beds made with these to overcome e.g. onion white rot. They look OK I guess :)
If you are raising the soil level in order to overcome this sort of problem, or to grow prize parsnips, or because you're on a boggy hill, they would definitely figure on my list of options.
Are you wanting to raise the soil level, or make DEEP beds (which will raise themselves over time)?
If the idea is to make deep (rather than raised) beds, you might not need to edge them? Some of us don't - benefits are less work and expense, and fewer slugs :P

[Katinkka]

I find the clay'y soil hard to work with on my allotment.  I'm hoping with raised beds it will be easier to maintain and since I also have problems with my legs it might make it easier for me to use.

Just wondering if anyone else used them.

[Melbourne12]

I've looked at Link-a-Bords, but they seem to me to be quite expensive, to require a very even ground, and I'm also concerned that they might be a bit fragile for the rough environment of an allotment.

To be honest, it's not much work to make a basic raised bed.  If you can't get secondhand timber for nothing, buy some gravel boards from B&Q or similar, and just peg them into place.  Ok, you'll probably need to saw the ends to size, but that's about it.  Most of the work goes into the preparation of the ground rather than the construction of the timber work.

[moonbells]

If you want boards, go to your local timber yard. They will usually cut timber to order to suit your lottie. I calculated that one link-a-bord bed of the size I wanted (3.5mx1.5m) would be about £30, whereas 1" thick by 6" wood cost me a quarter of that.

To balance this, you have to think that the wood will only last a few years, perhaps 4-5 if untreated wood is used. Then think 4x5 is 20 years...

I went with wood! Search for raised beds - we've had this discussion before. What I didn't say before is that I use metal plates with screw holes in to fix things: 90^o braces for corners and straight ones for middles of beds. Middles? Well, you can't easily get 3.5m lengths in a Polo! So they cut them in two and I screwed them together again when I got to the lottie!!!

I also got spiked stakes (yeah, I know... Buffy the cabbage slayer) to hammer in and keep the boards upright and in position.

Works well.

moonbells

These were my photos when I finally finished all mine. I got rather better at it by the time I'd finished!
http://www.allotments4all.co.uk/joomla/component/option,com_smf/Itemid,28/topic,19371.0

[Hyacinth]

A friend (80s, keen veggie gardener, toots round on a scooter) invested in Link-a-bords.....her garden is on a slope and the bords cope with it superbly.....bonuses are that a) although the original surface is quite clay-ey, she bought in/transported good soil for growing so was on the starting blocks from Day1 b) she can regulate the depth of the beds by adding/subtracting bords)c) although she needed someone (me!) to construct the bords which was easy-peasy she's now independent with earth paths a scooter-width in between d) they actually look good, too!

I'm well impressed.

Cost = I don't know.

Longevity of bords - not known but they're made by a quality producer (think Armillatox is one of their products?) so I'm confident that they will do the bizz for the forseeable future.

Bonus for her - instant relatively hassle-free beds she could start using.

Bonus for me - I get to inherit them :-[ :o