The weather has been unseasonably warm here in Central Kentucky this week. While this may or may not be contributed to global warming and the eventual demise of our environment, I have to say it feels really really nice. It has me itching to get out in the garden and start spring planting.
Oh, except that it is January! That might a problem. Winter is a great time to rest, read books, and plan for the spring garden. Still, experienced gardeners know that there never really is a good time to rest when it comes to gardening.
January’s tasks should include getting the spring seed order placed (if you haven’t already), drawing up a layout for spring planting, and keeping up with composting. It’s also a good time to clean up any unsightly messes that have accumulated around the ol’ homestead or do any building projects, like the chicken coop remodel that has been on my mind lately.
Why Raised Beds?
Since the weather forecast is looking great for tomorrow, I think I’ll spend the day building a new raised bed for the garden. There are so many reasons to used raised beds instead of traditional beds. Raised beds drain faster than traditional garden beds, preventing some diseases that occur as a result of wet roots. They also warm up earlier in the spring, which means you can plant sooner. They are also easier to work because they are higher up. Once you make a raised bed, you never till it, and you never step on it. I made my original beds five years ago, and they have not been tilled since. I simply add some compost to them every year. The dirt is quite nice and soft. Not tilling your soil is beneficial because you don’t kill all the good earthworms or shove the nutrients down deeper than your plants will go.
If you want to use a no-till method like I do, fall is really the best time to build your raised bed. This will give it the nice, long winter to decompose, leaving you with great ready-to-plant dirt come spring. Since January is feeling like fall, you should definitely build some beds this week and not put it off any longer!
Material Choices
Over the years, I’ve used a variety of materials to build raised beds. Rocks, bricks, lumber, and even broken concrete. I think the best materials are those that you already have or can get cheaply or free. I’m proud to say the bulk of my bed materials have been salvaged.
There is lots of debate about what kind of lumber to use. It really depends on what your budget will allow. I do wish that all of my beds were made of cedar, but my budget doesn’t allow for that. Due to chemical paranoia, I try to avoid treated lumber and just plan on replacing the boards when they rot.
Building the Beds
Most of my raised beds are now very simply four boards nailed or screwed together. I’m just a girl who is not adept with the power tools, so I get my boards cut when I buy the lumber or beg my father to do it. It helps to have an extra hand around to help you hold the boards when you are putting them together, but it isn’t completely necessary.
I’m sure someone more clever than me would use fancy measurements and chalk lines and blueprints, but why over-complicate things? I kind of like the more organic look anyway. I like my beds about 3 feet across. I’ve had some that were wider, and it was too tough to reach the middle of the beds since I’m not that tall.
Preparing the Soil
You could easily whip out your tiller and mutilate the soil where you want your bed to be, but it is much simpler to go the no-till method. The first step is to kill whatever is there—by suffocation. (It’s interesting that vegetarians think they are being kinder to the earth, because gardening is kind of brutal!)
I used old cardboard boxes from an acquaintance who does a lot of shipping. I also used some newsprint-type paper accumulated from the junk mail piles of friends and family. Ideally, you probably shouldn’t used colored inks around garden beds because of the dye—but what companies only use black and white these days? I held down the layers with rocks, so they didn’t blow away as I was working.
Next, add layers of organic materials. These will deteriorate in the coming months and turn into a planting medium packed with nutrients. Some ideas include unfinished compost, grass clippings, kitchen scraps, leaves, lime, ash, manure, straw, etc. I will spare you the photos of every layer that I did, but here are a few. Basically, you are making a compost bin right in a garden bed.
If you do this in the spring, you can add a thin layer of dirt or finished compost on top to plant in. For now, you can cover it with a thin layer of plastic to help speed up the deterioration. The soil will also warm faster in the spring if it is covered. This will give you a few weeks head-start on your gardening neighbors. (If you are competitive like that, which I’m sure you aren’t.)
Hi SK,
I’m thrilled to have found this site and I’m enjoying your posts immensly. I moved to W KY this past fall from Central Florida where the differences are greater than this blog comment will allow. But I’ll dig in a little here about what I know about gardening. I was a member of a community garden in Orlando for two years, which equals three planting seasons per year. I didn’t have time to prepare a bed this fall for next season and I’m still trying to catch my breath each day as I adapt to my surroundings and new life in KY. I’ve found a few incredible sites for starting a raised bed garden (this site included) and the Dept of Ag extension bldg isn’t far from my home.
My biggest concern is how to keep the wildlife away from my garden without making my yard look like a caged experiment. We have a large landscaped yard in addition to a large undeveloped property where deer, turkey, opossums, fox, bobcats, squirrels and birds thrive. (I am blessed to have all of this space.) I’m going to make beds in the landscaped area. Do I need to fence in my beds? (We had a large chain-linked fence around the community garden in Florida that contained thirty beds, but we were in the center of the city.)
Help,
Maureen
Maureen,
Thanks so much for stopping by. I’m glad that you’ve found the information here useful. It’s great that you have a property that has some wildlife diversity. In my opinion, it is much better to start with that then to start with a barren wasteland and try to build fertility in.
As for pests in the garden… yes, you will have problems probably. It’s been my experience that what is a problem one year may not be the next. I’ve heard some crazy story about folks creating garden fortresses to keep rabbits or deer out and still losing the battle! Your best bet might be to put out a garden and see what bothers you that first year so you can know what you’ll need to fence against. My garden is in my backyard, which is fenced in. Still, I’ve had some rabbit issues, but nothing to be alarmed over. (The bulk of my garden losses are when my chickens escape from their part of the yard and treat my dear garden like an all-you-can-eat buffet!) This year I lost nearly my entire sweet potato crop to moles. The worst part was that I didn’t even know until I went to dig up my big, beautiful sweet potatoes only to find they had been nibbled on every corner.
The best thing for deterring these things may be a garden guard dog. I have a miniature schnauzer who is outdoors most of the time and haven’t seen nearly as much rabbit damage since then. She’d definitely run a deer or possum off as well.
As for birds, I’ve developed a pretty nice system when it comes to birds in my berry patch. I just plant extra and plan on letting the neighborhood birds eat some. This saves me from covering all my plants with bird netting, which my small children could get tangled in!
Looking forward to hearing how thing go for you here. Kentucky is a great place to live, but it is definitely different from Florida!
Loved the raised beds. I do this myself but the article has excellent tips for better soil. This year I am working on composting chicken and horse manure. Wondering if I can just work in the manure to my soil now before working on compost? I need to get rid of some clay that is still in a couple of my beds. I grown lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, squash, and anything else that we will eat!
Hi
I am going to try this this week. Does it help with deer, fox, turkeys, rabbits, etc? I am in Nj and we have a lot of animals that eat everything right before it’s ready to pick.
Thanks!