Starting your adventure into the world of edible gardening with containers may eventually cause a feeling of limitation. While container gardening is a great place to start and often the only reasonable solution for apartment dwellers or renters, as a lazy gardener you won’t be able to produce as much as you would with raised beds. So if you're fortunate enough to have the space and the resources to build raised beds - it's really the best all around option for growing an edible garden.
Rolf Hokansson and Aimée Damman discuss why building raised beds is worth the effort.
Rolf Hokansson and Aimée Damman discuss why building raised beds is worth the effort especially in colder climates like the Pacific Northwest.
Now why would you build raised beds instead of just planting edibles straight into the soil of your yard? A couple of reasons;
This last point leads to another lesson, don’t fill the raised bed with dirt from your yard. It's likely not going to contain a good mixture of elements for edibles without certain additives. Another possibility is the soil may have some contaminants which could make their way into your edibles and body.
After you’ve chosen the perfect place for raised beds, based on the considerations we discussed in Chapter 3 – you may need to do a bit of additional prep work to get the space ready. This is particularly important if you are planning to place the beds over an area currently covered by grass. The last thing you want to do is start a raised bed over a healthy bed of grass. The grass will grow straight through, taking over your beautiful raised bed, and it will become a massive weeding headache.
So you’re going to have to remove the grass without the aid of chemicals. The chemicals which kill grass will also harm your edibles and may make their way into any edibles that manage to survive. This is decidedly easier said than done and the two easiest and healthiest approaches to it are going to be dependent on how soon you intend to start your edible garden;
If you know you want to start an edible garden next summer or a couple months out – lay down cardboard and black plastic over the area where the raised bed will go. It may take awhile but this will kill the grass without having to resort to any intensive physical activity.
If you’re a last minute type person, someone is going to have to put some serious muscle work in to preparing a space for the raised beds. Literally, digging out the grass and grading a flat surface to place the raised bed. It’s not going to be easy and some grass volunteers may sneak through into the raised beds. However, it’s still better than doing nothing at all. This is how we prepared our front yard for the three raised beds and while we have a couple of grass volunteers around the edges it’s not an all out assault.
Just like almost everything else in the world of edible gardening, you’ll find an infinite number of different recommendations on how to prepare for and build raised beds. In the end, all you’re really doing is building a frame to hold some soil and it doesn’t need to be any more complicated then you want to make it.
I’ve found these instructions from Sunset Magazine to be the simplest out there. You can also use a less expensive wood like pine – but your beds may not last as long as with a stronger one like Sunset recommends (think five to ten years instead of fifteen). While it may seem tempting, don’t skip the portion about adding PVC pipes to hold hoops. Hoops can come in very handy for holding up mesh to keep out pests and clear plastic for creating a warmer environment for your plants.
Using hoops to help provide newly planted starters with a warmer environment.
In cooler climates, hoops can be an essential tool to help provide newly planted starters with a warmer environment.
You may see a lot of beds built considerably taller than these instructions from Sunset – while this may offer convenience for harvesting and more root space for the plants it’s going to need much more soil. You’ll also have more soil to turn over and keep happy by adding compost each year.
Anything! That’s the beauty of building raised beds. From lettuce to artichokes to tomatoes – raised beds are great. Aimée Damman had great advice when I asked her this question; she suggested not to think of it as what to grow in raised beds, but instead as if you only have limited space in your raised beds – what would be okay to grown in containers since you can truly grow anything in raised beds. She recommended plants like lettuce, herbs, and other leafy greens as good options to grow in containers instead of taking up space in a raised bed.
Mint! Mint! Mint!
As well as any other invasive plants like the ones mentioned in the What To Grow In Containers section in Chapter 4. You don’t want to plant anything in a raised bed which may spread too far and over compete with the other edibles for nutrients.
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Whether you're going to grow edibles in containers or raised beds, there will be some supplies you'll need to gather. Continue on to Chapter 6 and I'll walk you through the basics.