How to Make a cheap garden bed!! Sometimes garden writers make things involve more work and expense than necessary. Raised garden beds are one example. Your crops will grow fine whether your beds are level, raised or even sunken (a good choice in dry, windy regions). Maintaining dedicated beds — where you plant crops — and dedicated pathways where you walk is the important piece. Compacted soil is the enemy of strong plant growth. The more easily a plant can send roots into the soil, the faster the plant can absorb the nutrients it needs and the more drought-resistant it becomes. If the plant has to spend energy pushing roots into hardened soil, the plant has less energy to grow and produce well. In nature, meadow mice, moles, earthworms and other critters tunnel throughout the soil — and thus counteract compaction — and humans and other large critters do not walk over the soil often. But in a garden, we walk back and forth a great deal, and our footsteps definitely compact the soil. “One winter, we took a shortcut across a fallow field, using the path almost daily,” reports market gardener Anthony Boutard in his splendid book, Beautiful Corn. “When I looked at an aerial photograph taken three years later, I could still see that pathway reflected in the reduced growth of the crop planted there.” The best way to minimize soil compaction is to lay out defined areas for growing and defined areas for walking. First, measure the entire area and make a drawing on paper. Choose a bed width that lets you easily reach to its center from the path. Think about where you want composting areas, where you will want gates if you fence the garden, and where to leave room for a worktable or two and a bench with a nice view. You can make paths as narrow as 1 foot if your space is limited, but always make a few main paths wide enough to accommodate a garden cart or wheelbarrow comfortably. If your garden area slopes, arrange the permanent garden beds across the slope rather than down it to minimize erosion. Build most of your beds the same size so you can use row covers, critter protectors and chicken tunnels interchangeably. Use wooden stakes, pipes or rebar to mark the corners of the beds. The stakes can do double duty as hose guides — simply slip a length of plastic pipe loosely over each, and hoses will slide around them easily. Growing vegetables in garden beds is far more efficient than maintaining single rows of crops. From the paths on either side of a bed, you can easily weed and harvest crops in a bed 3 to 4 feet wide. When you plant several rows next to each other in a wide, permanent bed without a pathway between them, crops grow together to shade the soil and thus reduce weeds. But if you placed pathways on either side of single rows, you would compact more of your garden soil as well as leave more area open to sunlight, which permits weed growth. Permanent beds and paths also let you apply fertilizer and water more efficiently. Read more at realfarmacy/how-to-make-cheap-garden-beds1/#jRAvZmfwKu550fZt.99
Posted on: Sun, 09 Jun 2013 01:15:24 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015