This is a public-interest archive. Personal data is pseudonymized and retained under GDPR Article 89.

Re: "unconstructed" raised beds?

Square Foot Gardening List - http://www.flinet.com/~gallus/sqft.html

There was a segment on one of the gardening shows about someone who was
gardening in desert conditions (I do not recall the soil type). He used
raised beds and made troughs within the beds. The troughs were to
direct rainfall to the plants. Having the plants raised a bit above
ground level might help with the drainage problem for clay soils.

This technique might be worth trying in a small test bed to see if
there are any water savings over planting at ground level. I don't have
desert growing conditions so I will leave comments to those who do.

Excuse the ascii art but this is my best recollection of what a
cut-away side view of the set-up looked like:

                  \|/  \|/  \|/           \|/  \|/  \|/
                  \|/  \|/  \|/           \|/  \|/  \|/
          /---\   \|/  \|/  \|/   /---\   \|/  \|/  \|/   /---\
         /     \___|____|____|___/     \___|____|____|___/     \
        /                                                       \
_______/                                                         \_______
<---------------------------width of bed-------------------------------->




At 10:08 PM -0500 1/14/99, "Olin" <millero@worldnet.att.net> wrote:

> Erica Cathers <erica@jersey.net> wrote:
> Date: Thursday, January 14, 1999 6:49 PM
> Subject: Re: "unconstructed" raised beds?
>
> >Olin,
> >This reminds me of an article I saw in Country Living Gardener some time
> >back.  Someone in a harsh climate with dry wind built beds that were
> >actually below ground level so he could grow perennials that normally
> >wouldn't make it there.  I can't remember more details than that, and I
> >don't still have the magazine it was in.  But it looked kind of cool, as
> >well as being useful.  I'm trying to find the date of the article and if
> I'm
> >successful I'll post the info.  (I'd kind of like to read the article
> again,
> >myself.)
>
> I actually tried sunken sqft beds once but drainage was too poor in our
> desert clay soil.  But ground level beds worked okay for me.  One of the
> better sqft posts on raised  (or not raised) sqft beds is archived at
> http://www.mallorn.com/lists/sqft/jan97/msg00088.html reads in part as
> follows:
>
> Subject: Re: Raised beds
> From: John Orwick <oldjohn@JUNO.COM>
> Date: Sat, 11 Jan 1997 14:46:00 EST
>
...
> The soil which I removed and gave to my friend was replaced with compost
> and dug into my remaining soil. This improved my soil but left it about 2
> inches below grade. After I flood it with water, there is no water
> standing after 5 minutes. Will this work for everyone? ..........NO WAY
> !!! .........
>
> oldjohn@juno.com
> John Orwick

---
Peggy Enes (peggy@unicom.net)   Zone 5/6    NE KS     AHS Heat Zone 7


______________________________________________________________________
To unsubscribe, write to sqft-unsubscribe@listbot.com
Start Your Own FREE Email List at http://www.listbot.com/
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index