October 16, 2017

 I have been gardening for quite some time now, since my mother gave me the garden bug back in the Forth grade.The garden was laid out in rows. Pretty much the garden was 50% paths an 50% rows. This is how I did it for many years.

 

In the 70's I went Organic and started to use raised beds. The tops of these beds were mass planted on a grid pattern. Raised beds became quite fashionable at the time and actually remain so to this day..These raised beds were formed by mounding the soil. There was no ridged frame around the beds.There was a real purpose for these raised beds. 

At the time I lived in Kentucky a place that received a lot more rain than what we receive in far west Texas. The raised beds being only 6 inches high were very effective for their purpose. These beds drained and allowed the sun to warm the soil. This made it possible for a gardener to plant much sooner than normal.

Fast forward several years to my present gardening location. Drainage and soil warming is not a problem. I f the beds are flooded after a rain, within the hour they will be drained. On occasion after a long period of rain the plants will become chloritic  because the soils are too wet. This corrects itself once the rains stop and the plants can grow into soil that has nitrogen and iron. If this doesn't happen then iron chelate and a nitrogen fertilizer can be administered to make all happy in Oz once again.

I no longer use raised beds. Our soils are very droughty  and drain moisture quickly. Our soil warms quite quickly too. Raised beds would hasten this warming and draining.  With the use of fabric I have had volunteer tomatoes germinate and grow in March. the fabric prevents the plants from getting zapped with the ever lessening number of freezes up to the last freeze date.

Even with mulching  raised beds would drain quicker than "flat on the ground" beds. I actually take a little thing from the Pueblo Indians and have a berm on the down hill side of my beds to catch any rainfall.

Now there are some reasons why one would want to use raised beds: the gardener is unable to kneel, Your garden sits on top of immature top soil (bedrock) and raised beds would allow you to garden. Then there is the "civilized" look of raised beds.

I have seen folks that have raised beds because they cannot kneel very well and their beds are 1 foot tall. To truly be effective these beds need to be waist high or wheelchair high.

With any raised bed especially if they are made of wood need to be maintained.  With my berms I just rake soil to reestablish them with any new planting.

In Far West Texas I am not a fan of raised beds.

I feel that what ever a gardener does to give them the confidence to succeed is good. I like to see more gardeners.

Although in my mind when some one says "I built ten raised beds" I will say "this is good". What would impress me is for them to say "I dug in 6 inches of compost into my garden". This person is truly well on their way to being a very successful gardener.

I would very much appreciate folks thoughts on this issue. It is a very common subject that comes up with veggie gardening..