Re: Raised Bed
AsmGuru@aol.com wrote:
>
> Hello all-
>
> I asked a few months back about what to do when stuck with abysmal soil, and
> one answer that came back was to try a raised bed. Boy that never occurred
> to me, but the person who suggested it said they'd done quite well that way.
>
> OK, Marv has me stoked to conquer the world next year (or at least my block)
> so I'd like to try the raised bed approach. Does anyone have any wisdom to
> pass along? How big/tall a bed? Techniques? And what kind of results can I
> hope for? For me a couple hundred lbs would be raging success.
>
> Yes Duncan I searched the archives (and thank you for them) but didn't find
> much.
>
> Thanks,
>
> ...Paul
> Costa Mesa, CA
Hi Paul,
I think it was me who told you about the raised bed. My beds are about
1 to 1 1/2 ft. high. We built them about 10 years ago. I tried to break
up the bottom soil/clay with my hoe (oh my aching back!), then we filled
the beds with river silt/soil. It's very sandy. I hoed somemore - I was
younger then, what can I say...... We use to have horses & the beds got
a goodly amount of horse poo poo and lots of weeds. After we sold the
horses about 6 years ago, we just bought bags of composed cow manure,
peat moss & natures helper soil amendment and added this every year.
Last year when I decided to try to grow a big pumpkin I did a soil test
& was deficient in nitrogen, but everything else was fine. So I sowed
winter rye, then tilled that in in the spring, along with some blood
meal. Then we got a load of mushroom compost & I used my rototiller (got
tired of hoeing) to mix everything in. The bed that I grew my pumpkin in
measures approx. 8 ft X 24 ft. & is fenced in to keep my dogs out. Of
course the pumpkin vines outgrew the bed - I just guided them through
the fence & let them sprawl (christmas tree method). I cut them off &
buried the ends when the side vines got about 6 - 8 ft. long. The soil
outside the bed is not very good - it's mulched with pine needles, but
the pumpkin vines did root into the soil there. (I wonder just how good
the soil, that the side vines root in, has to be. How far down do these
vine roots go?) I fertilized this area also. I used a combination of
granular fertilizer & then later on when the pumpkin was set I started
using water soluable 20-20-20. I must have done something right cause I
managed to grow a 581 lb pumpkin. We're in the process of making another
pumpkin area - I'm going to try to have it plowed before we build the
raised beds. I do have one question. We used landscaping timbers on our
raised beds - are RR ties okay to use? I'm concerned about whatever
they're treated with leaching into the soil & harming the plant.
Hope this helps :-)
Bev from N.C.
