Making raised beds

[esshup]

O.K. guys and gals. I want to make some raised beds this Spring. 20 feet long, 50"-54" wide inside, 24" tall. It freezes up here, and I only want to make them once, not re-do them in 20 years. I want to make 3 of them. That wide because I can drive my garden tractor with the tiller on the back in and out of them.

I was thinking pour a 9"x9" footing in the ground, using the ground for a form. Use 3 courses of 8"x16" block. rebar in the footing, rebar coming up from the footing, filling the lowest course and part of the 2nd course and using a tie to help hold the wall from "pooching" out during the freeze/thaw cycles we have here.

I also looked into using PT wood rated for ground contact. Then I saw PT wood prices.

Thoughts and suggestions?

 

[TNTreeHugger]

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[Hard_Yakka]

Cement board on the inside of non-PT wood or Tyvex lined x 2.
I cut a bunch of full sized 2x12 & 2x8's Fir last year and just took some out of the drying pile to coat the inside, bottoms and ends with a sealer then white paint. Adding 2 more this year plus some regular in-row growing corn, squash(pumpkin). We will still line the inside with Tyvex/Road cloth. Going on 7th season for the early ones. 4' is the maximum bed width. No liner installed in the new box yet when picture taken. This one built in '20, 4x8'

 

[djg james]

Why are you making them that tall? Takes a lot of soil.

 

[Del_]

All of that building is for the gardener, not the plants. The plants don't need it. In the end the bed frames just get in the way. They are quite labor intensive to build plus they cost a lot.

Our beds are 3ft. wide and 50ft. Walkways are 2ft wide. Each bed has a metal stake at it's center at each end. We try to not walk in the beds to reduce soil compaction. We use a Troy-bilt roto tiller to incorporate plant residue and prepare the surface for planting. We use a Meadow Creature broad fork(look on YouTube) for digging 14 inches deep to break up the subsoil. We use drip irrigation and human urine for fertilization.

I've been at the hobby for 40 years now and have been through all kinds of garden designs over the years and love to build things. Gardening is about growing plants though and plants don't give a darn about infrastructure. You've got to love what you are doing and if you don't then gardening is just a huge amount of work Vs. being a pleasure.

This is the gardening style that we have settled on.

Here's how we pressurize the drip for out 26 beds. We work in the garden while irrigating.

Here I am using a Meadow Creature broad fork:

 

[Hard_Yakka]

We have a lot of dirt on 200 acres ... Wife has had spinal fusion and is able to sit on the edges or kneel without a lot of pain and reach into center if necessary. Ours are 20"-24" high. I do the in-row crops just like my 'daddy' did and won a bunch of blue ribbons with aged chicken manure soup/tea added throughout the season.

 

[TNTreeHugger]

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[Del_]

You paid $260 for that thing?
Guarantee my $50 spading fork will work just as well.

Guaranteed it won't.

And I have a half a dozen other spading forks.

You're not a gardener, so how would you even know?

Show us your results.

 

[SweetMK]

Well, this is the ARBORISTSITE,, and most have a chainsaw,,,
add that to what my SIL found on some internet search,,

What he ended up doing was making the raised bed out of a couple logs as the sides.
and,, IIRC,, he added brush/branches in the raised bed, as some of the fill, to supply part of the nutrients of the garden.

The raised bed he made was about 30 feet long, and it is producing nicely.
The crops are far superior to the result of planting in the clay soil that he has.
He has had it for about 4 or 5 summers now,, and it seems to be working.

So, got any 24" diameter trees that need disposed of??

 

[SweetMK]

Something like this would be quick and easy,,

 

[TNTreeHugger]

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[Del_]

I am an excellent gardener and can grow anything - as long as it's not edible.

And one doesn't have to be a gardener to know you got snookered on that thing.

Maybe you should read up on the benefits of broad forking?

I started 'double digging' with a regular spading fork back in 1980.

An investment in a tool is not being "snookered'.

You are in a vegetable gardening thread is case you don't know it.

You know, where people talk about growing vegetables.

Evidently it is something that you don't do well.

 

[TNTreeHugger]

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[esshup]

The reason for the raised beds is so I don't have to work at my ankles but more importantly to be able to garden in better soil. When I renovated my pond in 2008/2009 we brought over 2700 cu. yd. of sand over there to build up the slope of the ground so Mom & Dad could put up a pole barn on flat soil. 30'x40' building. Dad's knees were giving him problems so he didn't want to be walking up a steep hill so we leveled it out. Pee poor for growing it drains way too fast and has 0 organics in it. Under the sand is a lot of clay. Dad built Mom 2 raised beds out of 2x12's, but Mom used so much Preen in them over the years that getting something to germinate from seeds now is a real crapshoot. The top 8" of soil from those beds will go in at the bottom of the new beds.

So, I want something that will last 15-20 years without needing to be rebuilt 'cause I ain't getting any younger. Plus who knows what stuff will cost then?

As for filling them, a farmer a mile down the road is digging out a pond. He's got soil that is so black that it looks like carbon. It's in a low area and organics have collected there for eons. He's got a small dump truck, and a small shaker deck/screen table with a conveyor to load the truck. So getting good dirt would not be a problem.

I have a lot of drip irrigation supplies here from when I gardened in Ca., so I won't need to buy much for that. I will put galvanized 1/2" hardware cloth at the bottom of the bed so the dang moles and gophers don't come up from below in the beds.

 

[djg james]

Love your garden Del. Mine started out years ago as a 50' x 60' plot with a slope. I put in three 3' x 16' raised beds, end to end, out of 2 x 10"s White Oak that I got when I was at the mill. Most of the downhill side has rotted away, so I got the boards scabbed and propped up with rods.

I've cut back because I'm terrible at keeping weeds out of the garden. I'm putting beans and squash on trellises. Still trying potatoes.

The lowest section terraced off the garden, was rows of strawberries. Well weeds got to it and choked out the plants. I want to reclaim it slowly and plant sunflowers for the birds. Did you start yours in the ground or inside in pots?

 

[djg james]

My BIL builds his raised beds on 4 x 4" posts so the sides only have to be 12". Of course you have a bottom you have to contend with.

 

[Automender]

O.K. guys and gals. I want to make some raised beds this Spring. 20 feet long, 50"-54" wide inside, 24" tall. It freezes up here, and I only want to make them once, not re-do them in 20 years. I want to make 3 of them. That wide because I can drive my garden tractor with the tiller on the back in and out of them.

I was thinking pour a 9"x9" footing in the ground, using the ground for a form. Use 3 courses of 8"x16" block. rebar in the footing, rebar coming up from the footing, filling the lowest course and part of the 2nd course and using a tie to help hold the wall from "pooching" out during the freeze/thaw cycles we have here.

I also looked into using PT wood rated for ground contact. Then I saw PT wood prices.

Thoughts and suggestions?

Maybe you should consider retaining wall blocks. They will flex with the frost cycles and last for ever. You can't fight mother nature and the laws of physics for long.

 

[TNTreeHugger]

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[Del_]

Not yet.

This thread is about how to make a raised bed - you don't have any.

Troll on. We've been there, done that. I like to help people maximize their gardening enjoyment and productivity. I've lost count of the people over the past 40 years that I helped get more enjoyment from gardening. If fact this very gardening forum here at Arboristsite resulted from my suggestion to the owners here back in the day.

Here's our same garden spot when it contained 32 4ft x 16ft raised beds dug 24 inches deep.

 

[TNTreeHugger]

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