Raised garden

[swamp snorkler]

Originally Posted by Nietzsche

I have been gardening in beds for a while now so I have a few thoughts to share with you. I would re-think the dimensions of the bed you are planning. Ideally the width of the bed should be no more than you can reach the middle of it from both sides. This means you can plant / harvest the bed without walking in it. One of the big benefits of raised bed gardening is the improved soil structure. Walking on it compacts the soil, especially in the sandy soil we have. I find 4 x 25 beds best for me. I can easily reach anything in the garden and the 100 square feet makes soil amendments and fertilizer easy to calculate. At 4 feet wide, you can even run a tiller through the bed while standing outside of it.

Instead of plastic or round up, you might consider this. Cover the ground with a thick layer of cardboard, paper grocery bags or newspaper. Wet it down good and then put your dirt on top of it. The layer of paper will smother the grass / weeds, is water permeable and is bio degradable. You would not believe how many earthworms this will attract into the garden. With the popularity of Amazon and other sites shipping box cardboard is easy to find. Just don't use any paper with colored ink on it. Black ink is okay.

Marigolds are used to prevent nematodes from tomatoes and cabbage worms from cabbage, brussel sprouts etc. French marigolds are much better than the African varieties. I believe you would be better off planting them amongst the plants instead of in the holes in the blocks. Planting herbs in the holes sounds like a good idea. I have never tried it but I will this year. Thanks for the idea.

Originally Posted by lil bubba

With tomato's I only plant 1 row...Cabbage , broccoli ,peppers I go with 2 but offset the plants...

Great info.

Eman, I wouldn't go higher than 2 cinder blocks. I have a buddy that came across some half sized cinder blocks. He put 1 full size as the base layer and 1 half size so I guess his garden is about 12" high. He makes a real nice garden.