Raised Vegetable Garden Benefits
Raised Vegetable Garden Benefits
Are you searching for the perfect backyard vegetable garden? Do you have the room or the time? A raised vegetable garden just might be the answer. You will find that a garden is not expensive and easy to create.
Choosing a raised vegetable garden can be difficult and
seem expensive. However, you will find out that not only is it inexpensive but you get great vegetables that taste amazing. You won’t have to wonder about bad soil in your garden because it remains protected. This produces wonderful and tasty vegetables.
Still not sure if raised vegetable garden is the right choice? Take a peek at some benefits.
Soil Means Everything For Wonderful Crops
Inspect the dirt in your backyard and you will find that it is sandy, full of rock or starved of nutrients. Maybe even too much clay. This type of soil will not provide you with great vegetables.
Deciding to use this method, you can select the soil that grows your crops. This reduces pests and weeds and removes a great deal of weeding. Great soil in your garden means great crops or vegetables.
Contains and Protects
Using a raised vegetable garden makes it easier to contain your garden. Some crops can take over your garden once the sprout. Others will spread such as mint and strawberries. Having a wall around your garden contains them. Also, your soil remains loose and not compacted by walking or siting on the soil. This allows for the soil to breathe.
Your Back Will Thank You
Raised Vegetable Garden
Everyone soon discovers a this is easier on your back. We all love working on our garden but leaning over can strain our backs. Having your raised vegetable garden elevated removes sore backs and allows you to enjoy your garden. Caring for your garden because much easier.
After reviewing these brief benefits of a raised vegetable garden you can see it is the most popular choice for any backyard vegetable garden. I’m am certain you will love your garden.
Start your garden today!
Raised Vegetable Garden Technique
Raised Vegetable Garden Technique
Raised vegetable beds have been around for centuries now. More and more people have developed their own style of building and tending their own garden beds yielding different kinds of results. Of course, although experimenting is not bad, its always good to stick with the basics.
Raised vegetable garden bed is
a gardening technique where vegetables are planted in raised beds created on top of the ground supported by frames generally made from either wood or concrete materials, depending on the needs. Raising the beds above the original soil gives you the luxury of choosing the best soil you can use, which is normally loam; it greatly reduces soil compaction that allows the roots to grow freely, and creates the best moisture level suitable for plant foods.
Garden bed frames are normally constructed depending on the space and design of the garden itself. Ideal dimensions of the garden beds would be 3 x 4 or 4 x 4 feet wide with a height of about 1 2 feet from the ground to make it easier for the gardener to tend and cultivate the plants without having to bend too much. Its also advisable to create your raised vegetable garden beds on two sides, at least a foot apart from each other, with a 4 feet wide pathway in the middle to maximize the available space.
Raised Vegetable Garden
Once, the garden bed frames have been constructed we can start dumping garden soil in it. Before doing so, its best to mix your loam soil with decomposing leaves, horse dung or cow manure, or any kind of organic materials to act as natural fertilizers.
Most vegetables are suitable to grow on raised vegetable beds and some can easily thrive in this kind of settings. Choose a plant that doesnt require space to grow or have massive root system. Here are some plants that we can grow using the raised vegetable garden bed technique; Leafy crops like spinach and lettuce, pole peas and beans, tomatoes and peppers, or root vegetables like carrots and onions. To keep the soil in your raised vegetable garden fertile and productive, never plant tomatoes in them. Tomatoes can cause the soil to become diseased and will affect whatever you vegetable you plant next.
Raised vegetable garden bed method is the best gardening technique in the past, present, and possibly even in the future. It has been tested and proven to yield first class export quality vegetables. So, if youre a vegetable lover whos very meticulous with what you eat, then its about time that you create and grow your own vegetables right in your own backyard. Construct your own raised beds and see the results with your own eyes!
Raised Vegetable Garden Building
Raised Vegetable Garden Building
Why build a raised vegetable garden you may ask. The advantages are that you will have good drainage, it will be easier to maintain the garden because it is not so far to bend down and you are able to build up the fertility of the soil by adding plenty of compost and rotted animal manures.
The most convenient shape for you garden is to make it oblong. Make it wide enough so that you can reach to the middle from each side without stepping on to the garden. A good width is 1.50 to 2metres wide by any length your site allows. By doing
this you will not compact the soil by walking on it when planting or weeding. Having an oblong garden allows you to have your rows across the width which makes it easier to plant, thin and weed.
Your first step in building a raised vegetable garden is to find materials to make your retaining wall around the outside of the garden. Any untreated timber is suitable or another option is to use concrete blocks – if they are readily available. Another option is to buy a ready- made timber raised garden kit set.
Raised Vegetable Garden
The next step is to select the garden site and lay the garden edging around the perimeter. Now you are ready to fill the garden with your chosen compost, old straw, rotted manure and soil. If your garden is on a grassy area it is a good idea to lay a thick layer of old newspapers at the bottom on top of the grass as this provides a good barrier to stop the grass growing into your garden. I have used newspapers and even old magazines and it worked very well for several years.
For your raised vegetable garden to be really successful make sure that your garden is raised at least 30cm (1 foot) above ground level as this will ensure any long root vegetables will have plenty of depth to grow in and have the added advantage of very good drainage. I have seen a raised vegetable garden with a capping around the top of the retaining wall which was wide enough to sit allowing the gardener to garden in comfort without bending or kneeling – an added benefit for the older gardener who has difficulty getting up from a kneeling position.
Raised Vegetable Garden Beds Materials
Raised Vegetable Garden
To determine the best materials to use in creating your raised vegetable garden beds we need to consider things like location, weather, and design. If your sole purpose is to grow vegetables, then using timber for
your garden bed frame is enough. If your reason to build one is not just for vegetable growing but for beautifying your garden as well, then you may need to use concrete materials for that, but of course it will still depend on your house’s settings or your taste itself. Having said these, let’s discuss some of the materials that we can use for building raised vegetable garden beds and its benefits.
Here are things that we can use to build raised vegetable garden beds depending on their qualities and your needs.
Raised vegetable garden bed frame materials
Timber
Light weight and easy to use, timber makes good building material for your garden bed frame simply because it will allow you to relocate your garden beds for a lesser amount of work and time compared to using concrete building materials. The best types of lumber that we can use are Redwood and Cedar, which are known for their natural resistance to insects and rot. We can also opt to use fabricated lumber like Trex, which is made from recycled materials like sawdust, wood, plastic, etc., or UV stabilized Food Grade Approved materials like Polyethylene.
Bricks and other concrete materials
The use of this kind of materials requires a lot planning before the actual construction. Concrete materials are commonly used for permanent raised vegetable garden beds because of their long-lasting qualities.
Scrap materials for Raised Vegetable Garden
These are things that we commonly find around the house that we normally throw away. Using these kind of materials require creativity and resourcefulness to be able to make them look beautiful and make them blend with their surroundings.
A friend once used scrapped bulldozer tires in building his raised vegetable garden beds. What he did was to line the tires in pairs then placed the last one right in the middle of the four tires, painted them creatively to make them look like concrete designs, filled them to the brim with garden soil mixed with cow manure, and started growing cabbages on them.
Garden Soil Composition
Sandy soils are known to be the warmest type of soil. Sandy soils are a combination of clay, silica, and quartz. The advantage of using this type of soil for your raised vegetable garden beds is that you can plant anytime of the year and is easy to cultivate but on the other hand, it’s not good for plant foods, and its course grained qualities doesn’t allow the soil to retain moisture.
Loam is referred to as the perfect combination of sand and clay; it is most suitable soil for planting vegetables. Sand allows the roots to move easily while the clay is perfect for plant foods. In wet weather it allows water to percolate easily and in dry weather it retains some moisture in the soil make it still possible for plants to survive.
The author has been doing vegetable gardening for almost 5 years and discovered gardening techniques that are essential for growing vegetables in limited spaces. Are you one of those people who love gardening but don’t have much space in their backyard to start one?