From the article: Raised Bed Gardens
Raised bed gardens are a popular way to grow. Terrible soil, tree roots, lawn and weeds---they all become non-issues when you garden in a raised beds. Here, About Organic Gardening readers share their tips and advice for making and using a raised bed garden. Share Your Tips!
Good Advice on Creating a Raised Bed
- I wished I'd read your article before I purchased my materials. I went to the local organic gardening and the owner suggested I use cinder blocks and get sand to help make it level. What a project! Composite lumber would have been so much easier. Rita
- —Guest Rita
Great sense of achievement
- Thanks to your piece, I just finished building two 10'x5' raised gardens. To clarify a point in your article, we wanted the entire garden to be above ground, away from burrowing critters, so I ended up putting two 2x6 frames on top of each other, with chicken wire along the bottoms. (Obviously it would have been easier to use 2x10's from the start. ) That way we could get a soil depth of 10", which is enough to smother any potential weeds and avoid stressing out the plants by growing them into our original soil. We ended up using a combination of 2/3 topsoil and 1/3 sweet peet, and we're growing corn, broccoli, tomatos, cucumbers, green beans, carrots, various herbs, and few other things. We fenced the entire thing with 6' high plastic fence to keep the deer out, and secured the perimeter with staked bamboo posts to keep out smaller pests. This is our first time doing this, so we'll see how it goes. But we're very proud of our achievement thus far!
- —lantern
