Raised beds

[cockneycarrot]

Hi Piglet Thank you for your advice and the list of which veg most suitable for my raised beds, i have already sown carrots in one bed, hoping i can beat the carrot fly

[cockneycarrot]

Hi Beryl, Thanks for your help, I have decided to be more positive and make 2 more raised beds.I messed up my first post to you so if get two you will know why.

[fuchsia]

you shouldnt get as much carrot fly I try to sow some flyaway in between others to fool them and cover the whole bed with mesh some will fall fowl but not very many .
Fuchsia

[mandylew]

I have divided my plot in half, one side is 3 traditional beds where I rotate onions, potAatoes and brassicas in rows (I actually quite like digging!), the other side is 8 raised beds where i grow everyting else really, salads, strawberries, beans, peas, leeks,garlic, carrots, parsnips. Just planted the furthest away one up with asparagus, so that will be permanent now, the strawberries I keep for 3 years, so I suppose that gives me 6 left really, one is currently a playpit for the kids! (do you have grandchildren?)

Mandy

[Iain]

Hi Piglet,
Are you saying that your raised beds have no soil in them? I ask because I have limitless quantities of old, black, totally-rotted horsedung/straw/shavings but I'd need to buy in topsoil at considerable expense. If I could get away with the black stuff I'd be quid's in. Reluctant to waste a season on a fruitless trial, you understand. As things stand, I'm going to follow the advice of an excellent source elsewhere and do it in layers- compost/soil/compost/ soil, sort of thing. But I'd much appreciate the benefit of your experience.

[pigletwillie]

Hi Ian,

our raised beds are quite deep and are filled with 90% very old manure that has a consistency of a peat / compost mix but one that holds onto moisture tremendously. The other 10% is homemade compost and leaf mould. Our beds went into full operation and our crops were supperb in all aspects.

I expected a lot of leaf growth at the expense of anything else but we had great onions, beetroot, leeks, salads, swede, cabbage and carrots. Contrary to popular belief, really well rotted manure doesnt cause carrots to fork, its the lumpy bits that do that in manure thats only a year or two old.

The garlic that was sown in October is absolutely brilliant and my banana shallots are rampaging away as are my onions and the small amount of salad planted out this year so far.

In the autumn we top up the beds (which do settle a bit) with more compost and manure and cover them if not being used to prevent nutrient wash out in the rain.

Here is a piccy taken on Saturday of our manure beds.

[Iain]

Hi Piglet,
Thanks, that's interesting. We know your formula works well.I have the old dung ;it seems as if I need to get compost bins made asap., and get the leafmould gathered up. Supposing you had had the old dung only, how well do you think you'd have done? (best guess!)Maybe it was the homemade compost that supplied the nutrients/chemicals that prevented that leafy growth you feared you'd get? Who knows, eh? My dung is of two physical types: stuff that looks like soot but is heavier-because more moisture-retentive than soot, I guess. The other kind comes from deep in the pile (decades old) and it looks like tobacco-flakey and a mixture of black and browns ( again, I guess that the structure is connected to the amount of oxygen it had or didn't have.)I'd be surprised if either proved more moisture-retentive than a good medium loam, but I could easily be wrong.
Anyway, I'm encouraged by your report, so it's onward and upward! I'll let you know how I get on.

Thanks,

Iain.

[pigletwillie]

Hi Ian,

our biggest bed was just 12-13 year old manure last year and was only top dressed with compost this spring to top it up. It had spring onions, beetroot, chanteray carrots and lots of lettuce in succesion. All did very well especially the carrots. With vintage manure in my meagre experience it has lost its overload of nitrogen and behaves just like a good loam crop wise but with better moisture retention. I didnt add any feed to the beds last year and only wood ash this year (for the potash) on my garlic.

An added bonus that some raised beds dont have is that because they remain moist my beds are stuffed full of worms.

This is the sort of stuff that came out of the manure beds, even our strawberries grow in it.

[Iain]

Hi Piglet,
I am very pleased to hear this! What I'll do is use only old dung this season and see how it goes. If I get anything like what's in your pic I'll be WELL pleased! Thank you kindly for your help. I'll report!!

Iain.

[PT]

One thing I've notesed with the few raised beds I have left is the crops on the edges do better than in the middle. I think it's becouse the paths have plastic sheeting with wood chip on top, and the outer plants get some of there roots under the plastic were it's more moist.

[Wellie]

I'd recommend ordering a book by Pauline Pears from your nearest source. It's entitled "Growing Fruit & Vegetables on a BED SYSTEM". This inexpensive book will completely fire your enthusiasm for growing stuff in raised beds. It did me, and I am regularly referring to it two years later...

I have eleven raised beds, approximately 2 metres by 1 metre each, with bark-chipped paths in between.

I'll let the book do the talking on why raised beds ARE so practical, but suffice to say, I find the rotations of crops very much more manageable, you can 'control' the cropping environment so much easier (ie. warming up the soil, cloches to protect crops from weather or pests, adjusting the soil to specific requirements re. liming/manuring etc.) and because the roots of prospective crops have more depth 'to play with' it means that you can plant closer together than in a conventional manner. The book is very good at explaining it - unlike me !!

At the minute I've 'MOSTLY' got Garlic, Broad Beans, Mini-Cauliflowers, Calabrese, Red Cabbage, Kohl Rabi, Mangetout, Sweetcorn (under 2litre plastic bottle cloches & tent cloches over the top at night), a 'permanent' Asparagus bed, Red and White Onions, Spring Onions, Radishes, Lettuce and Leaf Beet.Oh, and Parsnips and Beetroot.

Leeks are 'in the wings', as are French Beans, Courgettes, Summer and Winter Squishes, Florence Fennel, Herbs, Swede, Celeriac... Then when the Garlic comes out there'll be Carrots and.........

So, I'd say "GO FOR IT" too !

With as many a year under your belt as my 'elderly next door', who has been my pure inspiration in the 6 years he's taught me, I'd say you know more than you're "letting on" !

I wish you lots of success in your new venture.
Why not post back in a while to say how it's all going?? I'd love to know how you've got on...

wellie

[Iain]

Thanks for that, Wellie. Book bought. Have a good season.