How to do raised bed gardening
There are many different types of gardening, and sometimes it can be difficult to find out what types of gardening are right for you and your type of soil! One of the types of gardening is raised bed gardening. This is a popular form of gardening because it allows the plants to get a lot of sunlight, and it also looks very attractive in the yard! Here is a list for how to do raised bed gardening:
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- Begin your garden in the colder months: The best time for you to begin a raised bed garden is during the colder months, such as during the fall or the winter. If you prepare your raised bed garden early, then your soil will have time to be settled into place by the time spring comes around. Then, you will be able to start planting right away in the spring.
- Place your raised plant bed on a north-south orientation: When you are creating your raised garden bed, you will wan to place the bed on a north-south orientation so the garden will get an even amount of direct sunlight. You should avoid using railroad ties or treated lumber when creating the raised garden bed. If you do one of these products, you might end up getting chemicals into your soil which will kill your plants. Instead, look into using logs, bricks, or redwood poles. You can also use cement blocks, but these blocks will slowly raise the PH level in your soil over time, which will require you to do PH testing.
- Make your raised bed: Mark out the area of your bed by using stakes and a string. Remember, when you are making your raised bed, you will want to make sure that you do not make the bed more than a width of two arms lengths. If you make the bed too large, then you will have trouble weeding and caring for the plants without having to climb around them within the bed. Then begin to dig a shallow trench (only about 2 inches deep) so that your building material will be slightly into the ground. You also need to make sure that your raised garden bed is on an even level all around. When you place the wood or logs for your bed, you will want to make sure that all of the seams are staggered a little bit. The same thing should also happen for cement block and bricks. You should nail the boards together with galvanized spikes that are at least 6 inches long.
- Fill your raised bed with compost: One of the keys to raised bed gardening is using a lot of compost. In fact, many raised bed gardens have more compost than regular gardens! As you are adding in the compost and some decomposed manure, you will want to mix in amounts of regular soil as well for your raised garden bed.
- Place topsoil over the top: After adding in your compost and regular soil mixture, you should place topsoil at the top of your raised garden bed. You should let the topsoil settle for about a week or two, and then you should add more soil as needed. The soil will settle over time, and you might be required to add more soil again in the spring before you begin planting.
