Raised beds!

[Paulottie]

Brilliant Linzy...exactly how to do it...frugal, simple and recycled...

Perhaps worth getting some 2" baton for stronger corners (better not to screw into end-grain)...could even posh them up with a tin of shed paint...a few dowls and some water pipe will make simple hoops for netting....All easily within anybody's diy abilities and toolkit.

Not really my scene raised beds...I grow on over 500sq metres of lottie...but I have had a few over the years. (partly in the way of terracing). I can appreciate their advantages.

I enjoy veg growing as a passion, I enjoy the imagination it requires to find solutions on a budget. (and without making the place look like a shanty town or Steptoe's yard or wasting the planet's dwindling resourses)...What on earth is the point if it costs you more to produce a carrot than to get Fortnum's to deliver it by helicopter.

Producing food is being reduced a fashion statement...

[WilliamD]

Thanks Newton. Filling them with a big delivery of 'vegetable soil'. Used that in the beds on the left last year and got really nice crops of carrots, onions, etc. It arrives as a fine black mix, apparently a blend of soil, compost and manure. Fingers crossed for good weather now!

[Harrod Horticultural]

It's each to their own, I think. I am the Harrods Kitchen Gardener by day and an allotment holder in my spare time. My allotment is basic and rustic whereas the Kitchen Garden is more ornamental. I love them both. I love that my allotment looks homemade, but wouldn't want to look at it from my kitchen window. If I grew my veg outside my back door, I want it to look a bit more special, a prettier place to sit in the Summer.

[Bren In Pots]

If I grew my veg outside my back door, I want it to look a bit more special, a prettier place to sit in the Summer.

I know the feeling before I got into growing veg I had a pond, lawn and shrubs, now the pond and shrubs have gone and so has half the lawn the rest would have gone but we need it when we have to dry out the trailer tent. I grow in 4ft wide none raised beds with quarry tile paths in between and it looks fairly tidy, it would look better if I didn't have to use nets though.

[Bigmallly]

I think there are different considerations to be made when growing in a garden or allotment. When I grew in the garden it was nicely stained decking with paving stones as a path, now on the lottie, it's nicely stained scaffold boards with chippings as a path.......

[Aberdeenplotter]

whoops, I keep getting asked why I don't keep the garden at home as well as I keep my plot

[drunkgardener]

raised bed are so much earier then a standrad in ground bed.
1.raised bed drain better.
2. there heat up faster when weather gets better.
3. makes it easy not to compact you good quality soil.
4. they give you defined paths in your garden to walk.

[scorpius]

& they are a godsend if you have a bad back

Im trying to organise our garden slowly as i have arthritis & OH isnt well, so that in time we will still be able to enjoy the garden & will make it easier for me to manage on my own as & when OH gets worse.

[Two_Sheds]

Im trying to organise our garden slowly as i have arthritis ... in time ...will make it easier for me to manage

You can cut out the lugging around of compost too, if you adopt the One Straw approach ~ I call it chop & drop





As it's a mulch system, you'll be watering less too. The buckwheat is a living mulch, keeping the soil moist & cool, when it gets too tall I chop it and drop it on the soil. The worms soon pull it down, no digging in required.

[Martin H]

When I've used green manures, I've always dug them in or, if I need the ground straightaway, they've gone in the compost heap. Two_Sheds, I'm interested in your Chop & Drop approach: do you pull them up before chopping or just cut them off at ground level and leave the roots in? Also, what do you do with seeding annual weeds, chop & drop in the same way?

[iam]

I have found that the best size for me is 6ft.10Xft. this allows me to access from both sides and not to far to walk round when I want to plant or sow, also a bed that width allows the rain water to reach the soil which means less manual watering.