Kitchen Garden Forum

hey, what height of raised beds? do you lot recomend ,what works for you, 6-8" worked well last year for onions,10-12" worked well for sweetcorn and carrots, how deep can i go? peas failed at 20" ithink they dried out, soil mainly horse manure (hemp ) with bought compost on top. does any one irrigate theirs? i'm thinking of soil on top with a mulch....maybe some of that porous tube..... any ideas welcome only second year!
cheers Laurie

I've only been using them for 2 seasons, so far. Mine are 9-10" high placed on top of solid clay. I also dug some sand into the underlying clay. They've worked very well so far for everything from carrots to leeks, courgettes onions beans etc etc I also grow chard and the enormous roots go down into the underlying clay, but not a problem.
Re Watering the beds, I just do it when they get dry, like an ordinary plot!

Mine are 8" high, and like Sandy's, the roots just go down into the surrounding soil. I've grown pretty much everything in mine - all sorts of squashes, sweetcorn, brassicas, roots, spuds. I find if you get a good organic mixture in them they don't dry out so much. I give my whole plot a really good soaking once or twice a week in the summer and that seems enough.