Kitchen Garden Forum

hi i am new to gardening, being semi retired i now have time. i have a reasonably sized back yard but it is all concreted and surrounded by brick walls. i have put in a raised bed 3ft square and 3ft high, in this i have put in topsoil which seems to be a sandy type,then some manure and on top general purpose compost. i have planted 4 autumn bliss raspberry canes 1 at each corner, have i done the right thing or made a complete ****up will i be able to do something similar for a blackberry and possibly veg.all help really appreciated thankyou.

Good morning Katd, and a very warm welcome to the forum.

The raised bed you have is ideal for planting just about anything in, as they are three feet deep. Problems always occour when raised beds are very shallow and on concrete.

So if you build more raised beds of the same depth, you can grow what ever you want. Even with the one you have planted with raspberries in, you could sow some quick growing salad stuff, like lettuce and radish, that sort of thing.

There are people who use raised beds on here, so they will be able to help you more than i have.

I hope the raspberries do not take over. Particularly Autumn Bliss, which is about the most vigorous variety of all. It tends to throw up suckers where you don't intend them to be. Also consider the height of the raspberries + the height of raised bed = step ladders required for picking, perhaps.

You've certainly got of to the right start with your soil and manure mixture. It's not too late in the year to sow a few salads for harvesting this year, and into autumn you could put in autumn-sown / planted onions, garlic, and broad beans. They should do well for being well drained.

I also think the raspberry canes will take over...maybe get a large barrel and plant them in that..and save the raised bed for planting smaller veg and salads.

thankyou for your replies, i did not know autumn bliss was so vigerous. i wiil have a go at growing broad beans. i hope to have a few raised beds eventually. i want to grow fruit and veg also wildlife friendly flowers.

I'm n a similar situation as the only space where I can grow veg at this address is gravel on top of some hard layer. You'll find the beds, as you develop them, can be very productive - particularly if you have young plants ready to go in as one crop ends. It sounds as though you are off to a good start. Not all your beds need to be 3ft high by any means. Also, a small warning. The worst pests we've encountered here have been foxes and squirrels (made worse because some neighbours insist on feeding them. The soil/compost in the raised beds is much easier for them to dig in than the soil in the garden's borders. If you find foxes and squirrels are a problem, you may need to put wire netting round your raised beds. But good luck - you should get a lot of satisfaction (and produce) from this.

luckily although we are on the start of the countryside the only wildlife we get are birds and the very occasional hedgehog.i may make 2ft high beds for cabbage,cauliflower etc would this be okay.

Morning Katd, 2 feet high will be just fine, it might just need a little extra watering when the weather is very dry.

I have just built my fourth raised bed and though mine are only eight inches high they are on well drained ground. The biggest problem for me with raised beds hasn't been the construction but filling it with soil.

The first three beds were filled with building site cleared top soil that came quite cheap though labour intensive, now i'm faced with robbing soil from other parts of our plot.

What i'm considering doing with the fourth raised bed is to dig up the ground that it's laid on then fill the holes with stone from previous digging, this will of-course increase the drainage even more. We do have a lot of stone to get rid of but the labour involved is making me dizzy just thinking about it.

Richard, it sounds like you need to borrow a strong youth (a relative preferably) to do the donkey work for you!

Oh-yes.

I only have daughters who live six hours drive away, they're not likely to be much help if they lived round the corner. My daughters are far to busy coping with they have, and far to busy looking fabulous to be caught with a snotty nose and hair in mess.

If i'm going to pay for labour i'll expect more than i'm likely to get, I might be 70 and don't have a days work left in me but the days work I produce is still more than most are prepared to give.

I suppose we could afford to pay for some help and the management often reminds me that it's an option. My view is that whilst i'm able to do most everything our property needs and to do it in an expert and productive manner then our economics and living here work.

It's my rest day today, I better get out and do something.

On the subject of raised beds and at the risk of teaching my "granny to suck eggs", It's not as easy as fixing four corners together. You'll notice my ground isn't level and I want all my beds to look tidy and be on roughly the same level to in this case you do have to raise the beds then make scribed-fillers to glue into place. The glue I use is polyurethane and very strong, my corners are fixed first using six inch galv nails into interference-fit drilled holes then I use a six inch coach screw to pull them together.

Out of interest, Richard, what are the dimensions? You'll be aware of the argument that 4ft is a good maximum width, allowing you to reach all parts of the bed without standing on the soil; length can be whatever there is space for.

Ricard with an H wrote:Oh-yes.

I only have daughters who live six hours drive away, they're not likely to be much help if they lived round the corner. My daughters are far to busy coping with they have, and far to busy looking fabulous to be caught with a snotty nose and hair in mess.

that's a shame! to be honest, I'd rather be playing in my garden, with my hair tied in a knot on the top of my head, gardening clothes and gloves, and muddy boots my avatar is me at a wedding which I only do once a year if I can help it!

retropants wrote: my avatar is me at a wedding which I only do once a year if I can help it!

At the risk of exaggerating I've always been more comfy with ladies wearing baggy cardi's complete with mud and their hair looking like it was on fire at some stage.

Ken

That last one is 2.4 X 2.4.

Thanks and yes, I started those raised beds before asking questions and considering the difficulties of the sizes I created. I had mapped the whole area out and made a decision without thinking about access. I'm managing by using a spare scaffold plank and four-foot off-cuts and making sure I leave spaces in the right places. When I built this last one I figured I had already committed myself to difficulty so I built another the same size.

In one bed that I planted broad beans I sowed two rows right in the middle and placed canes in the right places. I knew I wouldn't be able to get at them until harvest, it worked Ken. They didn't need any attention and when it looked like I had a good crop I started at one end and cleared them.

Same in another bed with carrot either side of the onion and garlic that was taken out a few weeks back.

I'm learning Ken.