Paths versus beds on allotments

[Pies]

FWIW I've decided to go partly beds and partly rows

My reasoning is fairly straight forward really,some plants seem to do just as well in beds as rows,onions, salads, strawberries etc

Others like cabbage and brussels which a, grow big and b,like compact soil would seem to go against being put into a small bed.

Spuds,they surely must go in a row,i thought the idea of a bed raised or not way to avoid digging,well i cant see how you avoid digging at least twice to get the crop out

The one crop that im not sure of are runners,a lady on our plot has them in beds,but not as you would expect

Its a very simple idea but IMHO brilliant,imagine two beds side by side with a 3ft gap between them,your path.The poles are placed in each bed and joined above the path,so you can walk down the path to pick your beans and not tread on the beds.The other advantage is the rest of the bed can be planted in full light.Hopefully the diagram below will explain

Seems so simple to me,unless im missing something

[hmk]

The one crop that im not sure of are runners,a lady on our plot has them in beds,but not as you would expect

Its a very simple idea but IMHO brilliant,imagine two beds side by side with a 3ft gap between them,your path.The poles are placed in each bed and joined above the path,so you can walk down the path to pick your beans and not tread on the beds.The other advantage is the rest of the bed can be planted in full light.Hopefully the diagram below will explain

Seems so simple to me,unless im missing something

Are you in N Oxon?! That's my bean arch!!

I have to say my fellow allotmenteers aren't queueing up to tell me I'm brilliant, but perhaps they're waiting to see it fully operational...

It does seem to be space saving and the beans should hang over the path to be picked

HMK

[Storming Norman]

Reading this thread you would think there were many converts to raised beds, but not in my experience.

When I recently took on my little plot I could see only one way to cope with the heavy clay - very very hard and then really sticky stuff when it rains; and the winter flooding I was warned about, and that was raised beds.

Raised eyebrows more like it - I am treated as a revolutionary by fellow plotters, who visit me in the wilderness end of the site, surreptitiously to see what I am up to with the wood. There are many new plotters here as well as a few old hands. There are many fully dug strips, with people walking on the soil [and at the same time complaining about how hard it is to dig and turn into crumbs], and there are the smaller square patches - still too big to avoid treading on but more manageable.

I was able to dig a bed then, fill and plant it - really rewarding when after all it is only about growing not digging. As a result I now have a fully dug plot in 6 weeks [it's only tiny], but also mostly planted as I go and showing some plant maturity. Its been very encouraging to work in this way.

In fact most of my beds had to happen - around here they 'skim' the surface of the soil and stack it to get at the soil that can be dug more easily. They left a lot of it on my plot! As well as all the additional compost dumped there by others I had the raw materials sitting waiting to fill these beds.

As a result I was able to double dig by single digging the soil then mounding the heaps I was gifted in to beds made of cheap decking.

Other odd gains from this system include easier weeding in softer soil, and the opportunity to grow more safely in this glass ridden plot by filling each bed carefully one by one, looking out for unwanted rubbish as I went. The other half of this plot is being dug traditionally by my neighbour - he got a really nasty glass cut only yesterday when planting.

It rained buckets recently - my paths at soil level flooded in places. All the raised bed plants just grew a bit faster.

Now how to address the flooding paths............

[zazen999]

Now how to address the flooding paths............

I'd dig a hole at the lowest point/s, fill with gravel, and then something like a wooden board so that you can walk on it, then weed fabric over the top. You'd have to check the level of the gravel every now and then and top it up if needs be. A bit like a land drain at that one point - if you could make it close to the edge of the path it makes it safer as you won't walk on it all the time.

[miffy]

I have found another plus with my raised beds, crops in them do not get munched by slugs and snails, perhaps they get vertigo trying to climb the sides.lol

[Dottie]

Mine cost me nowt!

I built raised beds from bunk beds, loft bed, railway sleepers and old joists. All these items I collected from folk via freecycle.

From freecycle I also collected a 6x8 shed, compost bins, tyres, black bins, solid wooden arch, wooden bench, flagstones, wooden posts, all the galvanised nails I needed to make all the raised beds, several saws, garden fork, spade and loads of other tools, several rolls of roofing felt, shelving units for the shed, plastic mini walk-in greenhouse, all sizes of pots, 5 large bags of compost, pond plants and frog spawn, push along lawn mower, chicken manure and the list goes on.

However I have paid for several metal arches from Wilkinson's end of season sale £1.25 each, which look great at the end of pathways and for supporting blackberries.

Raised bed method and now no-dig method (I dug and cleared each bed area of all stones and weeds first) turns out to be the only way I could continue with my allotment, as I now can only potter when I'm good and nothing at all when I'm not so good. It was so rewarding recently when I planted out 3 pepper and 2 chilli plants, because the earth was so lovely and rich, I just made a hole and in it went.

Another advantage I find with having raised beds, is it's so much easier to do blocks of colour. So for example when I planted the peppers and chilli's out, in 3 separate beds which are the exact length and width of a bunk bed. In the centre of each bed is a young (2yr) fruiting gooseberry plant and at either end of the bed I planted a pepper at the top and chilli at the bottom. So in the pepper end I sowed some love-in-a-mist, poppies around the chilli, the next bed I put some cornflowers in the chilli end and a different poppy at the pepper end. Hopefully a zig-zag of blue and mulit-coloured poppies in these beds and then I have marigolds in larger beds to the side of these. Pot marigolds between cabbages and nasturiums in another bed and climbing up the wire fence next to the public footpath and also hollyhocks behind my shed which is also facing the public footpath.

From the point of getting my allotment plot, it will be 2 years end of July, I always thought of it as being part of the community. So having lots of flowers and colour is not only to attract lots of bees and ladybirds (it really does work), but also for folk walking past and living opposite to enjoy. Lots of folk do stop and comment on what's growing and on how good the beds look, beds look easier to manage and seem to give folk ideas to use at home. Young children are always stopping and ask about the flowers and enjoy seeing the bees, so it's really great at the moment as I'm able to send them off with the largest strawberry I can find, the excitement and pleasure they get from receiving the strawberry is just wonderful.

I like the fact that my plot is organised, it makes it easy for me to decide what goes where and I hardly have to weed at all. Which is not bad considering that 2 years ago the whole plot had 5ft tall couch grass and every other weed, but as I covered it all with cardboard and carpet and just dug a raised bed area at a time, then it seems I've won the war on weeds and no chemicals were used.

The carpet is gradually going off to the dump, as half my paths are now filled with a mix of wood chip and shredded leaves. I await my next delivery, which saves the guy having to pay to dump them, so he's happy to deliver and spread them out along my paths for me. He was also able to enjoy fresh strawberries, logan berries and tayberries from my plot. I'll have to email him and let him know if he's able to get back soon, he can enjoy some raspberries too.

So raised beds gets my vote and building them from recycled wood makes it even more rewarding for me.

[SarzWix]

I'm currently looking at ways to divide my big beds on plot #2 into smaller ones - been offered some flags, just need to work out the best way to split the beds. This is because we have realised over the last few weeks just how impoverished the soil is, and just how much muck & compost we'd need to import to improve whole beds - it took between 15 - 20 barrowfuls to cover the potato bed last winter and there's another 5 beds about the same size!

[Liza]

I do rows at the moment, no good at carpentry !

Cant afford ready made ones

How do you make raised beds with no edging ?

How do you plant a row of runners in raised beds ?

Sorry for the silly questions, but I am foncused

[zazen999]

Piccie of raised beds with no edge......from brooklyn botanical gardens

Planting runners in raised beds, use a bulb planter

You can just make paths, and walk on those; and the beds themselves as you grow, harvest, mulch etc will slowly raise.....you don't need to be that good at carpentry; all you need is wood and some stakes, hammer the stakes into the ground and nail the wood to the stakes.

[snuffer]

Raised beds with no edging are what used to be called 'deep beds'. Geof Hamilton would often preach about the benefits of deep beds when he was on 'Gardener's World'.

Most of my lottie is given over to deep beds. As funds allow I do construct edges out of timber for them but that is more to prevent the path material spilling over into the beds.

[HeyWayne]

When I grow up I'm going to have an allotment just like you lots!

Some cracking looking plots.

[Storming Norman]

Well well - went down the lottie this weekend only to see one of the other 'new' plotters manhandling a raised bed into place. He's made it out of spare loft boarding [gosh I hope it lasts]. He thought it would be the only way to grow unforked carrots.

That's two of us now - whatever next?

I'm glad I put mine in - all the plots around me are having flooding issues [including my new plot I've yet to dig and raise - of course I wasn't sure I would raise it until it got so impossible].

My paths are wet, but I've just dug in the rotted manure in my raised raspberry bed and planted my canes.

[chriscross1966]

I'm in sort of a limbo half-way house.... mostly as I don't know how long I'll have the allotment that I've got... I'm probably moving a significant distance away so would want to get a shift out to an allotment closer to home as a matter of course, but won't give up the current one until I've got a new one.... but that menas I'm loathe to do too much structural stuff to the current one.... it's pretty close to work so easy enough to get to whenever I need to, but not as convenient as one where I'll be living....

ATM the plot has a path running front-to-back up one side (it's long and thin) plus side paths that sort of define each area in the rotation .... I can pull the side paths out to rotovate. If I was staying I'd probably cut soem of the side-path slabs in half and double them up so I have a wide path between each major bed and a pair (or more) of thin paths to walk up and down between the beds... might sound wonky but it would work for me.... I'd then gradually raise the beds if I could..... it'd be easier on my back for starters......

chrisc

[Snadger]

Well well - went down the lottie this weekend only to see one of the other 'new' plotters manhandling a raised bed into place. He's made it out of spare loft boarding [gosh I hope it lasts]. He thought it would be the only way to grow unforked carrots..............

By 'loft boarding' you don't mean chipboard do you? If so, it deffo won't last!

[Storming Norman]

He told me it was loft boarding - looked like grown up chipboard to me - and no it doesn't look like it will be around long.