Is Mom Still in the Garden? (borderless raised beds)

[KYKaren]

This is my first post, but you might all be embarrassed how well I know you. I've read (lurked is such an ugly word) for years.

 

Anyway, I am intrigued with what Mom's in the Garden mentioned in a previous thread about *not* bordering raised beds. I've googled, but can't quite figure it out. IS there a wbsite with great, detailed instructions for the novice, or can someone describe how you've done this?

 

Thanks!

~karen~

[RegGuheert]

 

Is Mom Still in the Garden?

She is. Let me go get her...

[MomsintheGarden]

Hi Karen!

 

LOL - I wasn't actually in the garden, I was helping Reg with driveway maintenance this morning (close enough, at least I was outside!).

 

Please don't be embarrassed when asking about raised beds. We spent a LOT of time pondering the size, shape, and spacing of ours. Raised beds without borders can be flexible, but we knew that once they were made we wouldn't want to redo them, so it's nice to try to get what you want the first time. However, if you change your mind, that's ok - just change your beds!

 

Before I begin telling you what we did, here are some resources to get you started. Hopefully you can find them at your library:

 

The Organic Home Garden by Patrick Lima. This thin book (160 pp.) is a lovely, informative guide on creating and planting a gorgeous kitchen garden. It's practical and inspiring. Lima describes how to create the unenclosed raised beds he uses on pp. 26-27, but there are wonderful photos throughout to help you visualize them. Unfortunately, it's out of print and rather expensive to find. Hopefully your library will have a copy.

 

Lasagna Gardening by Patricia Lanza. This book will inspire you to try your hand at what Ruth Stout (a mid-20th century proponent of no-till gardening) calls "lazy" gardening. What you do is lay down lots of organic materials on the area (usually with thick newspapers or cardboard underneath) to make your beds. I've used this technique to make some wonderful vegetable and flower beds. The grass is killed and turns into a fabulous loam. This method also preserves the layers, worms, and beneficial fungi in the soil.

 

The Garden Primer by Barbara Damrosch. Chatty and encouraging, she has some great advice on creating a garden. It is not complete in its advice about plants, striving instead to include more topics. Look for the 2nd edition, dated 2008.

How to Grow More Vegetables by John Jeavons. I hesitate to recommend this book because Jeavons is a wordy, tiresome, self-glorifying writer who makes things seem more difficult and complicated than they need to be for a beginner. He also pushes the envelope when it comes to plant spacing. You may find his chapter called "Bed Preparation" helpful, but I don't agree that everything needs to be double dug. I built my very productive beds with either single digging (just turn over the soil) or Lasagna-style gardening. I also don't double-transplant like he does. The book is useful in helping you think about what can grow in a raised bed, and where/how to plant (See the chapter on "Making the Garden Plan." Jeavons revises his book regularly; any edition will do.

 

 

Here's the process we used:

1. Plan your garden by answering the following questions.

Where do you want your beds? They should be within range of a water source, in a sunny (at least 6 hours a day) location, and away from critters that will trample and/or eat your plants. A south-facing slope with protection from winds is a bonus.

How wide do you want your beds? Most people want them 3-4' wide. Ours are 4' wide. You want to be able to reach to the middle from the side without stepping in them. You also want your children to be able to work in them comfortably :).

How long do you want your beds? Ours are 24' long - I'd make them 25' if I had the space, for a perfect 100 square feet. Short beds mean more paths to maintain, but they can look very tidy. Shorter beds are great for starting out! Anything longer than 25' will be tiresome to walk around.

What will be your path width? Some make their paths narrow (10"), so as not to waste space. Ours are 2' wide, which is comfortable for maneuvering a wheelbarrow through when everything is grown up and spilling over. A 2' width is nice for sitting, with trays of plants next to you. Wider paths mean more paths and less garden.

What will your path material be? We opted for the inexpensive "Pro Weed Mat" from Gardener's Supply. It has been an excellent weed barrier, comfy to sit on, and it has lasted well for 7 years. Other options are biodegradable mulch (must be replenished but makes great soil that can then be put into the beds), grass (must be mown and likes to grow into the beds), white clover (shorter but also likes to grow into the beds), dirt (muddy and hard to keep weed-free), bricks or pavers (nice, but expensive), gravel (this is not nice to sit on and will be full of weeds in no time because you will drop dirt on it), rubber mulch (I would not have this near edibles, and it will get in your beds and just sit there), etc. You might have some local, free material that will work well in your garden.

 

2. Once you've answered your questions, it's nice to sketch out your plan on graph paper. I like the kind that's 4 squares/inch., and use 1" to graph 1'. I'm sure there must be some nice computer software out there to help with this.

 

3. Decide how you are going to dig (or not). Some folks have someone come in and till (or plow and harrow) up the whole area and make the raised beds the first time. Many tillers have hilling attachments that help with this. One of my friends had a local farmer do this, and he took some dirt from the paths to make the soil deeper in the beds. For some of our beds, we just piled on newspapers/cardboard/manure/hay and let it sit, lasagna style. For others we dug by hand with a shovel or spade.

 

Another option would be to have the whole area tilled and planted with a cover crop. Depending on where you live you could get in a couple of cover crops before winter sets in, such as buckwheat for summer, then oats/rye/bush peas for fall. You would probably want something that winter kills. Then you would need to dig or till in the crop residue after each one is finished, perhaps mowing first. This is a lot more work but it would really enrich your soil and get rid of a lot of weeds. Also you will have to wait until the soil dries out enough to till it in the spring, perhaps missing planting time for early crops.

 

4. Think about enriching your soil before or after you dig. You could get a truckload of compost or manure brought in and spread around. This will be easier to do before everything is tidy. If it's evenly spread, it will also be in your paths, which you don't really want. Just something to think about. We just wheelbarrow manure and hay in where we need it. We've also dug in peat moss, a quick way to lighten up heavy clay soil.

 

4. Mark your beds, keeping the corners as square as possible. I am depth-perception-challenged, so Reg helps me keep things straight. If your beds are 4' wide, you can use the 3-4-5 triangle rule to make nice corners. Measure twice, dig once.

 

5. Dig if necessary. Take your time. It is a lot of work to dig up sod.

 

6. Lay paths if you need to. We dug trenches in the sides of our beds and put 6" of Pro Weed mat in them. Then we closed up the trenches with soil. The mat is 3' wide, so we ended up with 2' paths.

 

7. Fertilize, lime and mulch if you'd like. Plant Tone is often available at nurseries and is organic. You should ask your extension agent about liming and fertilizing. Take his advice with a grain of salt if he recommends chemical fertilizers. I really like to mulch with hay or straw. Hay is free for us.

 

8. Plant and enjoy! The books above will get you started in thinking about what you'd like to grow. Grow what you like to eat at first, reserving a small space for new things you'd like to try.

 

9. Keep perennials, such as many herbs, strawberries, rhubarb, and asparagus in separate beds. Asparagus grows tall so should be put where it won't shade other plants (gee - how do I know that?).

 

If you started lasagna-type preparation now, your beds would be ready for planting in early spring for next year. Many things can go right into a small hole dug in the soft lasagna soil. Other things like carrots and beets will require some digging.

 

I hope I answered your questions! Happy gardening!

 

GardenMom

[KYKaren]

GardenMom,

That is a lot of great advice! I'll check my library when it opens tomorrow for the books you recommended. Tonight I can have some fun with graph paper. Since there is no such thing as a dumb question, let me ask the utterly obvious. Without a border, how do your raised beds keep their shape? What keeps the dirt from sliding or settling out?

 

What I have now is a large tilled area. Conceivably could I scoop dirt from where I want paths over into the beds and mix with the soil enhancers I will need? Also, since my spot is tilled, would you still recommend using cardboard or newspaper? Or can I safely forgo that step?

 

Thanks, GardenMom,

~karen~

[JennC]

Another good book is Weedless Gardening - he explains how to do the beds.

The beds are not actually 'raised' in the box on the ground way. At least in my case the ground is all flat, but the dirt from the paths I raked into the beds and the now lower paths were covered with several inches of pine mulch. The pine mulch or whatever you use keeps the dirt in the beds.

[BalanceSeeker]

She is. Let me go get her...

 

This made me chuckle :D

 

My thanks to Momsinthegarden for her advice. I now have one of those books on hold. Dh is in the process of building my beds in 115 degree weather, God bless his soul!

[RegGuheert]

Without a border, how do your raised beds keep their shape? What keeps the dirt from sliding or settling out?

Others have given insight into this and I'm sure MomsintheGarden will answer, too, but perhaps I can shed some light on this question:

 

When MomsintheGarden first made her beds, she dug 4' x 25' beds out in the grassy field, leaving 4' grassy paths between the beds. This arrangement had some problems. First, 4' paths were excessive. Second, the paths contained rich topsoil about 8" deep, which was the same material the beds had started out as. Third, the grass would NOT stay in the paths and instead invaded the beds, causing their shape to change over time, as you are suggesting.

 

Along comes Reg with the idea to get an inground pool. Where to put it? The ideal place seemed to be RIGHT where the garden was! :boxing_smiley: Not a popular choice, but it is what we ended up doing. My consolation was that we would build the pool fence large enough to enclose BOTH the pool AND the raised beds. But the result was not exactly what either of us had envisioned: After the builder had graded the garden area to shape and built the fence, it was completely red clay with NO topsoil! :scared: Because of the elevation of that area, there was no possibility of adding any soil on top.

 

So, what to do? Basically, DS19 (then DS12) and MomsintheGarden laid out the beds and REMOVED the red clay in each of the beds to a depth of about 8". The now 2' paths were then overlaid with the 3' wide Pro Weed Mat with 6" of their width hanging into the beds on either side. Then the beds were refilled with topsoil, manure, old compost, hay and any other type of organic matter MomsintheGarde could get her hands on.

 

The result of all of this is that the new raised beds are FAR SUPERIOR to the originals. They do not change shape each time they are redug, since the path material defines their sides. When it is dry, the red clay is a very solid path upon which to walk. When it is wet, the Pro Weed Mat keeps the mud off of your feet. Even though we get quite a bit of rain here, the paths have always been manageable, and typically they are quite hard.

 

When soil spills from the beds onto the mat, which it does, it can be easily moved back into the bed by scraping it off using a dull flat spade.

 

While I doubt any gardener would have chosen this arrangement from the beginning due to the extreme amount of effort involved, the result has been quite attractive from many standpoints. Having the paths made of red clay covered with Pro Weed Mat makes for beds that stay tidy through many diggings and a garden that is accessible all year 'round. This year is our seventh with this arrangement.

 

One final comment. Fencing the pool and the garden together has been generally good for the garden and not great for the pool. The problem is that organic matter from the garden such as manure or peat moss sometimes will blow into the pool. Think algae food. But the fence is attractive and it does keep the deer and most other creatures away from the garden. Now that MomsintheGarden has 10 beds in the garden space, there is no more room to grow. Our strategy to move forward is that we will build some new beds outside of the fence and plant only deer-proof vegetables there. Next year we hope to have a large 4' x 60' bed next to our potato garden (which is a traditional tilled garden) which will hold our onions, leeks, garlic, etc. That should free up two entire beds within the fence that can hold crops that are not deer proof. Let's hope the onions survive outside!

 

MomsintheGarden says she has more thoughts for you, but MomsgoingtoChurchNow, so that may be later today.

 

Good luck!

Edited July 26, 2009 by RegGuheert
Spelling

[KYKaren]

The links, tips, advice and suggestions have been great. Our library is open this afternoon, so between follwing this thread and checking out books, I should be set. I wish some of you experienced gardeners lived near enough for hands-on training. But cybe-friends are the next best thing!

 

And Reg--tell GardenMom that I'll check back for more from her later. Hope her worship today was full.

 

~karen~

[MomsintheGarden]

GardenMom,

Without a border, how do your raised beds keep their shape? What keeps the dirt from sliding or settling out?

 

What I have now is a large tilled area. Conceivably could I scoop dirt from where I want paths over into the beds and mix with the soil enhancers I will need? Also, since my spot is tilled, would you still recommend using cardboard or newspaper? Or can I safely forgo that step?

 

Thanks, GardenMom,

~karen~

Hi Karen,

 

Dirt and other stuff falls out of our beds on the paths when we dig, pull up plants, mulch, or add compost or manure. Sometimes the dirt in the beds is rather tall after digging and topples over when we rake it into shape. Then we just skim the surface of the path with a flat-bladed spade and scoop it back in, just like Reg said.

 

Yes, it will work to scoop dirt from path areas into beds. That's basically what one friend of mine did. I'd recommend only doing it if your soil is already good enough to garden in. Otherwise I'd just lay paths and build up your beds with manure, compost, or whatever you can get. But that is just what *I* would do. It's your garden, and first way is worth a try. Also, you don't want to dig out the paths too far down (no more than 4") because you will create channels for water. You will have your own re-creation of Venice when you get heavy rains.

 

Because your area is already tilled, you will not need cardboard or newspaper. Those materials are for killing grass/weeds that are in the space. I do recommend keeping your beds covered, always, with intensively spaced crops, cover crops, or mulch. If we don't have enough time left before winter to grow a crop on a bed, we mulch with hay. We also mulch around plants that winter over, such as kale. Actually, we heavily mulch the amended (fertilized and composted) bed FIRST, then make holes in the mulch for our transplants. This is much easier than arranging hay around small plants.

 

Reg (quoted below) told you how we did most of our beds, by removing clay, then adding manure and other good stuff. That was probably not what most folks will need to do. The site was unbelievably packed, hard red clay, stripped of the topsoil, tamped down over and over by a 20-ton bulldozer. I felt like those garden book authors who turned swamps or jackhammered-up parking lots into nice gardens. You really can make a garden just about anywhere if you really try!

 

Another good book is Weedless Gardening - he explains how to do the beds.

The beds are not actually 'raised' in the box on the ground way. At least in my case the ground is all flat, but the dirt from the paths I raked into the beds and the now lower paths were covered with several inches of pine mulch. The pine mulch or whatever you use keeps the dirt in the beds.

Both of these are great suggestions. I forgot about Weedless Gardening - it's a small, readable book by Lee Reich, a very down-to-earth gardener, but it hides on my shelf because it's so tiny.

 

Borderless garden beds will become "raised" in a variety of ways:

- After initial digging, the soil will be fluffier

- Upon the addition of compost, manure, organic mulch, etc.

- When soil from mulched path areas is raked into them. We use mulch from chopped twigs behind some of our outside-edge beds and it makes very nice dirt.

- By never walking on the beds, only on the paths. The paths will get packed down and the beds will stay fluffy.

Remember that fluffy beds compact down over the season.

We have found that the outside-edge beds with mulch paths need tidying once in a while. They also get a few weeds, but the children help me keep them under control.

 

So, what to do? Basically, DS19 (then DS12) and MomsintheGarden laid out the beds and REMOVED the red clay in each of the beds to a depth of about 8". The now 2' paths were then overlaid with the 3' wide Pro Weed Mat with 6" of their width hanging into the beds on either side. Then the beds were refilled with topsoil, manure, old compost, hay and any other type of organic matter MomsintheGarden could get her hands on.

 

The result of all of this is that the new raised beds are FAR SUPERIOR to the originals. They do not change shape each time they are redug, since the path material defines their sides. When it is dry, the red clay is a very solid path upon which to walk. When it is wet, the Pro Weed Mat keeps the mud off of your feet. Even though we get quite a bit of rain here, the paths have always been manageable, and typically they are quite hard.

 

When soil spills from the beds onto the mat, which it does, it can be easily moved back into the bed by scraping it off using a dull flat spade.

The beds are like very large, rectangular flowerpots. The paths rarely get mushy because of the clay between the beds. Worms are continuously working on mixing the manure into the soil, and they also work on the clay left in the beds. Sometimes we turn up a ball of clay from the subsoil if we dig - it often has a worm in it (interesting!).

 

The links, tips, advice and suggestions have been great.

 

And Reg--tell GardenMom that I'll check back for more from her later. Hope her worship today was full.

 

~karen~

You're welcome! We all enjoyed church!

 

There's one more thing I want to mention. When folks see our garden beds, they usually ask how we till them, because few people dig their beds by hand. They are always surprised when we say we have never tilled. If you continually add organic matter to your soil, you will not need to till either (you have my permission to till all you want, if that's what you like to do:001_smile:). Eventually, in 1-5 years, you will probably not need to dig the beds, either. If your soil is nice and fluffy, with good texture, you can use a broadfork to aerate your bed. Spread your amendments on top, and mulch if you like.

 

There is no one "right" way to garden. Just start - you will learn, little by little, what works for your family, climate, soil, and the plants you like to grow.

 

Let us know how it works out!

 

GardenMom

[KYKaren]

GardenMom,

Had to let you know that we found out our city recycles yard trash--chips it--and gives it away as free mulch. I'm so excited! Thanks for the inspiration.

 

~karen~

[Mrs.MacGyver]

Hi Karen!

 

The Organic Home Garden by Patrick Lima. This thin book (160 pp.) is a lovely, informative guide on creating and planting a gorgeous kitchen garden. It's practical and inspiring. Lima describes how to create the unenclosed raised beds he uses on pp. 26-27, but there are wonderful photos throughout to help you visualize them. Unfortunately, it's out of print and rather expensive to find. Hopefully your library will have a copy.

 

Lasagna Gardening by Patricia Lanza. This book will inspire you to try your hand at what Ruth Stout (a mid-20th century proponent of no-till gardening) calls "lazy" gardening. What you do is lay down lots of organic materials on the area (usually with thick newspapers or cardboard underneath) to make your beds. I've used this technique to make some wonderful vegetable and flower beds. The grass is killed and turns into a fabulous loam. This method also preserves the layers, worms, and beneficial fungi in the soil.

 

The Garden Primer by Barbara Damrosch. Chatty and encouraging, she has some great advice on creating a garden. It is not complete in its advice about plants, striving instead to include more topics. Look for the 2nd edition, dated 2008.

How to Grow More Vegetables by John Jeavons. I hesitate to recommend this book because Jeavons is a wordy, tiresome, self-glorifying writer who makes things seem more difficult and complicated than they need to be for a beginner. He also pushes the envelope when it comes to plant spacing. You may find his chapter called "Bed Preparation" helpful, but I don't agree that everything needs to be double dug. I built my very productive beds with either single digging (just turn over the soil) or Lasagna-style gardening. I also don't double-transplant like he does. The book is useful in helping you think about what can grow in a raised bed, and where/how to plant (See the chapter on "Making the Garden Plan." Jeavons revises his book regularly; any edition will do.

 

 

GardenMom

 

Well, I just have to say that I was able to pick up Lasagna Gardening yesterday at the library, and I can't put it down. We have very rocky soil, which used to be a horse pasture. It's good dirt, but after trying to till up a small patch last year, we had almost given up. Dh is deployed this year, so I didn't do anything...and he promised to build me some raised beds for next year, but I can tell that he wasn't all that excited about it (he gets back at the end of Oct., and they are slotted to leave again next Sept. -- we have much to do to get ready for winter, and he has a million projects that he wants to get done). So, this book has restored my motivation and confidence! I know that I can get some beds ready for next spring now by myself. Thank you for all of your advice!!!!

[JennC]

Since there are/were horses in your area, probably you can get ahold of some straw bales. Here I just let a few farmers know that I would accept their moldy straw or hay bales and they really just drop them off in my garden area. Spread it out (or not) for ground cover, mulch or compost starter. Another thing you can do (I forget the book) is set them up where you want to grow something. Dig holes in them, fill holes with good dirt, plant. Someone in this thread probably knows what I'm talking about.

[Mrs.MacGyver]

Since there are/were horses in your area, probably you can get ahold of some straw bales. Here I just let a few farmers know that I would accept their moldy straw or hay bales and they really just drop them off in my garden area. Spread it out (or not) for ground cover, mulch or compost starter. Another thing you can do (I forget the book) is set them up where you want to grow something. Dig holes in them, fill holes with good dirt, plant. Someone in this thread probably knows what I'm talking about.

 

Oh thank you! Great ideas everyone! We have many horse people around and many cattle/dairy farms nearby...I think I will hit them up for their leftovers - hmmmm, might be a good project for the kids!

[MomsintheGarden]

Well, I just have to say that I was able to pick up Lasagna Gardening yesterday at the library, and I can't put it down. We have very rocky soil, which used to be a horse pasture. It's good dirt, but after trying to till up a small patch last year, we had almost given up. Dh is deployed this year, so I didn't do anything...and he promised to build me some raised beds for next year, but I can tell that he wasn't all that excited about it (he gets back at the end of Oct., and they are slotted to leave again next Sept. -- we have much to do to get ready for winter, and he has a million projects that he wants to get done). So, this book has restored my motivation and confidence! I know that I can get some beds ready for next spring now by myself. Thank you for all of your advice!!!!

 

You're welcome! It really does work! We have rocky soil, too, so I can relate to that big time. Rocky soil can be very fertile, so don't worry too much about that.

 

We learned some things about working with newspapers that I thought I'd pass on to you:

1. Newspapers should be thick, at least 4 sheets thick, and overlapping by at least a couple of inches.

2. Don't try laying down newspapers on a windy day.

3. Have a wheelbarrow of soil, manure,etc., ready as you lay sections. When someone lays a section, have another person plop a shovelful on top to keep it from blowing away. Lay more sections, then go back over and shovel more stuff on top evenly. Someone else can then be following along with mulch.

4. This goes best when several people are involved - a good job for working with your children.

 

Since there are/were horses in your area, probably you can get ahold of some straw bales. Here I just let a few farmers know that I would accept their moldy straw or hay bales and they really just drop them off in my garden area. Spread it out (or not) for ground cover, mulch or compost starter. Another thing you can do (I forget the book) is set them up where you want to grow something. Dig holes in them, fill holes with good dirt, plant. Someone in this thread probably knows what I'm talking about.

 

I know what you're talking about! I don't know of a book on it. Please post, someone, if you do. Look for books by Ruth Stout in your library. She lived in the early-mid 20th century and was a big proponent of straw/hay mulch gardening.

 

Here's an article by Barbara Damrosch that describes growing cucumbers in straw bales:

http://www.kitchengardeners.org/2007/06/cucumbers_as_sport.html

 

Happy growing!

GardenMom

[specialmama]

Just wanted to pop in to say, MomsintheGarden, YOU ROCK! :hurray: