Solve Gardening Problems
With Raised Garden Beds

Set Up

If you want multiple raised garden beds to meet your flower or vegetable gardening needs, place them 2' to 3' apart. This will allow easy access to both gardens and a wheelbarrow to fit between. You can use your existing soil if it doesn't have high quantities of plastic clays and rock as the main component.

Blend with your topsoil, a mixture of organic material or home composting, peat moss and decomposed manure. The quantity of garden fertilizer should be based on specific soil tests for your area and yard.

Install heavy wire mesh on the bottom of the garden before placing your soil mixture in the enclosure. The enclosure can also serve as a barrier against rodents coming up from underneath. Moles and gophers love the worms and other desirable insects that they can find in this fertile soil.

If the soil in your yard does not drain well you may need a drainage system in the bottom of the bed. You could put a few inches of course rock at the very bottom of your beds.

An alternative is to install perforated pipes in a trench at the bottom and cover with rock and then drain the pipes to daylight. The easiest way to drain the enclosure is to simply drill weep holes at the base of the structure so that water can escape.

Benefits of Raised Garden Beds

• Drainage - Is natural due to the elevation of the soil being above ground level. Plants will not become water logged.

• Smaller Yard - These are great for homeowners that have smaller yards. You get a lot of yield from a small garden.

• Better Roots – Roots thrive in less compacted, fertile aerated soil.

• Higher Yield – Plants are put closer together and better soil yields more. No need to provide rows to walk down allows for more plants.

• Easy Access – Easy to bend over to access the plants or on your knees for eye level access.

• Earlier Startup – Elevated soils becomes warmer earlier allowing you to plant earlier.

• Quicker Drying – Elevated soil dries out quicker allowing for quicker planting between rains.

• Challenging Yards – Work well with challenging yard conditions including slopes due to less area required and contained soil.

• Deep Amendment - organic garden fertilizers and home composting work well into the soil and feed the roots thoroughly.

• Minimal Erosion - Being contained, very little soil washes away.

• Minimal Compaction – Since there is no one walking on the soil, compaction is kept to a minimum. Organic garden fertilizer can work into the soil better and do their job. Air and water that are critical to the mix are well maintained under these circumstances.

You can use some type of weed mat and mulch to keep weeds down and soil moist in your raised garden beds if desired.

Always keep soil properly mixed with the additives and avoid any soil layering.

It's a good idea to till the plants into the soil at the end of the season unless they have become infected with a disease. Over time the soil conditions in your raised garden beds will become very lush and fertile.

With a little more effort then a ground level planting bed, you can establish raised garden beds and create a near perfect soil environment with great garden fertilizer for successful gardening by the yard.

From there…it’s possible for you to produce twice the quantity of vegetables or flowers in half of the space through raised gardening.



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