Kitchen Garden Forum

Blimey Pa! Your leeks are huge, miles ahead of mine!

Impressed!
Westi

My beds are raised but it is because of constantly adding compost/ manure etc, over 27 years. We didn't set out to raise them it was to improve the soil and keep it good. The idea of laying boards and calling it a raised bed is one I can't understand either Parsnip.

Beryl.

Westi wrote:Blimey Pa! Your leeks are huge, miles ahead of mine!

Impressed!
Westi

Huge leeks !! and that's without the use of diuretics

When I wrote it I did wonder what the reply would be, knew for sure it would be witty though!

Westi

Hi,

I have a mix on my plot. Most veg goes straight in the ground, however I do have three raised beds.

The first is filled with compost. The purpose of it is to allow me to grow small rows of experimental veg.
The second is in an area of the plot where the soil condition is rubbish. Very clay rich and hard yo dig - and nothing worked. Filled with compost and Produced great veg this year.
The third is new and mini. At the moment it's just a surround / marker around my globe artichokes plant which I grew this year and lived in pots. but I do intend on gradually adding to it once I find out what artichokes like.

Like pa snip, I ve had my best carrots from the raised beds. The Parsnips were not so great but I didn't thin them out properly as I was scared of sap sting and kept forgetting to take my super long gloves with me.

Pawty

I think some people at using boards just to mark out beds. It might look like they are trying to make a raised bed, but perhaps that is not their intention, it just looks like it is.

I think you are right Pa Snip in that lots of newcomers to allotment gardening don't quite understand the purpose(s) of a raised bed. In your picture I suppose you could say that the only real purpose is to make the place look neater and maybe help with planning (I always find raised beds easier to plot on a piece of paper and to try and make sense out of when thinking about crop rotation). I am very happy to admit that I still struggle a bit to get my head around rotation - maybe because I'm naturally disorganised!
However, I still think it may be worthwhile making beds as they have in your picture even if you don't have the soil to fill them. Good, weed free topsoil can be very expensive and I was amazed at how quickly my relatively shallow raised beds filled up after 4-5 years of adding manure and garden compost, spare turves etc. In fact I soon had to add another layer on top of the existing raised bed so I could cultivate without it all spilling out!
The most productive raised beds I ever saw however didn't have any edging at all, much like Peter describes except this guy just had soil paths (bit messy in a wet season!)