New to Raised Bed Gardening

2ndhalf · Feb 21, 2016

I decided to switch to raised bed this year. I started working on piling up dirt yesterday out of some fertile top soil I have behind the barn which I will replace with gravel for parking equipment etc.

I have three questions..
1. Best manure and other organic to put in the bed for (Tomatos, Snow peas, Kale, zuchini and other stuff)
2. Best way to make a cheap drip system.. I have been pricing them online and they are expensive
3. How deep is too deep? What is a good depth for a RB.

Any pics you have of your drip systems you have used would be great.

EddieWalker · Feb 21, 2016

I'm sort of in the same situation. We've been disking up the ground and planting everything in rows, then weeding all the time and wasting tons of water that mostly runs off into the ditch.

This year we have built 16 4x16 raised beds out of treated 2x8s. I'm still leveling and filling, but I have four done and planted already. For now, I'm just buying topsoil.

When we where on vacation in South Africa, we ate dinner at a restaurant just outside of Addo Elephant Park and got to talking to the owners about how they grown their vegetables. They do raised beds and then put chicken tractors over them after they have picked everything. They use 2 chickens per bed and in a month, they eat every single plant, week and veggie down to the ground, plus fertilize the very poor soil that they have there. They said that in just a few cycles of doing this, the soil becomes enriched and they get more out of their plants. We already raise chickens for eggs and plan to build a portable chicken coop that will fit over the raised bed.

For watering, they used commercial drip systems. I've tried what's available and Home Depot and Lowes with poor results. Now I'm going to try drillng holes in half inch PVC pipe and laying it on top of the dirt, the length of the bed. Two rows of pipe is where I will start out and see how it works. My long term plan is to have a 2,500 gallon water tank that drains into my beds. I will fill it from my pond using a solar pump during the day, then drain it every night. It's a big project, but once done, should be all automatic.

2ndhalf · Feb 21, 2016

Not a bad idea, my mom has chickens and I may go clean her coop! I know they will eat about anything she throws over the fence to them, like a hog. I don't think I want chickens yet though. How deep are your beds 8" or did you double the 2x8 to get a 16" depth? I was also thinking of drilling holes in PVC and did that at my other place with some success... I think I may do that again and put a pump on the it rather than gravity feed from my rain barrels.

Mendonsy · Feb 21, 2016

I have a similar setup to what Eddie is building. There are currently 9 raised beds using treated 2x10's. Four are 20' long and the other five are 16' long all 3' wide.

I have four 250 gallon plastic tanks sitting on a bank about 5' above them which I fill from a creek. I use 1/2" PVC pipe with 1/8" holes drilled into the pipe on 6" centers in each bed. I use short pieces of 2x4 on edge to keep the pipes above the soil. The 5' drop provides just enough gravity pressure to get a decent drip from those small holes.

EddieWalker · Feb 21, 2016

I'm mostly just 8 inches deep, but there is a slight slope that I've had to build up the ends of the beds to level them. I just put busted up bricks under the wood to get them level. My plan is to come back and fill the void with concrete, then I will run my PVC pipes down the edge of the walkways, on the top of the dirt. Then I will put down a layer of 30 pound roofing paper and cover with a 2 inch layer of gravel. I want to be able to drain my water lines before winter freezes them, and I want the flexibility of getting to them, or adding more lines as we expand. My beds are 3 feet apart from each other, so that works perfectly for the felt paper, and it's a good sized walkway to get in and out of. Eventually we will probably have close to 80 raised beds.

teejk · Feb 21, 2016

There is an interesting book "Mini Farming" by Brett Markham. It gets into the soils, fertilizers, crop rotation etc.

ch1ch2 · Feb 21, 2016

Welcome to raised bed gardening. I have been doing it for 5 years now. I also do row gardening but it is not near as much fun and is a lot more work.
I have 5 4x12 beds, and 2 3x18 beds. All beds are framed with cinder blocks. The beds are 2 blocks high.
Q1, I have used many soil products. Some good and some worthless. I now only use "cow manure compost" from Home Depot or Lowes for $1.49 a 40 lb bag.
Q2, I use a drip system on the row gardens and am not happy with it. I use a timer controlled sprinkler system on the raised beds.
Q3, 2 feet is good. If a person is unable to bend over very far 3 feet works.

ch1ch2 · Feb 21, 2016

One other thought or word of caution.
In your watering...Hot water kills plants. If your irrigation system can be heated by the sun, make sure you do not use that hot water from the noon/evening sun.

davesl708 · Feb 21, 2016

A good source of information on this type of gardening is Mother Earth News. It is geared for small applications.
Have you tried soaker hoses for irrigation?

2ndhalf · Feb 21, 2016

ch1ch2 said:
Welcome to raised bed gardening. I have been doing it for 5 years now. I also do row gardening but it is not near as much fun and is a lot more work.
I have 5 4x12 beds, and 2 3x18 beds. All beds are framed with cinder blocks. The beds are 2 blocks high.
Q1, I have used many soil products. Some good and some worthless. I now only use "cow manure compost" from Home Depot or Lowes for $1.49 a 40 lb bag.
Q2, I use a drip system on the row gardens and am not happy with it. I use a timer controlled sprinkler system on the raised beds.
Q3, 2 feet is good. If a person is unable to bend over very far 3 feet works.

Intersting your using block.. how are you keeping those in place.. I have access to some cheap 16" block and thought about using them and using landscape adhesive to keep them together. I also want to leave the ends of my raised bed gardens open so I can drive my tractor through it to prep them.. or is that crazy? I hear they are a lot less prep work so maybe not necessary.

I'll have to check out that book. I have been gardening for years with some success, the last 15 years, my soil quality was pretty poor but now I moved and have outstanding soil so I'm pretty excited to get things in the ground here. I am tall and HATE bending over so I think I'm going at least 18" to 24" deep since it doesn't seem to be a negative to go taller.