Raised Beds ... I've Completely Blown It

[user 2656]

Please don’t despair.
I have raised beds that are only 12 inches tall with cardboard on the bottom and hardware cloth to keep the viles out. 4th year. We are on bedrock and had soil brought in for “raised beds” without forms (it looked like graves) around them and that worked until the voles found us.

I successfully raise(d) 300 tomato plants a year with a great ease, I do brussels sprouts I do peppers, I do cucumbers, beans kale, everything you can think of. I’ve never had a problem.
“They say” it has to be deep — well they’re wrong.
I do the square foot gardening method but I have learned some of the heirloom tomatoes need a little bit more room than one square foot!

Remember your dirt will sink and your plants will eat the dirt ha ha ha — I found that out I’m a city slicker. Mound your dirt in the center for the plants you’re worried about like beets. I’ve grown beets every year and 12 inches. (Carrots have never been successful because my soil is not conducive).

 

[SLADE]

Tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, spinach, etc. Honestly I don't want to change the plants ... I gotta change what I'm doing, because I blew it from the get-go.

I grow all of them in no more soil than will fit in blocks

 

[Peanut]

Self reliance is an admirable goal. But if you want a garden on the cheap I’d suggest making a friend of the local junk man. Every community has one, usually old, limited income. Drives around with an old truck/trailer collecting items he can sell for scrap.

The junk man gets all sorts of items you might need. Old bath tubs, barrels (plastic and metal), wire, rebar. Probably knows were brick and block can be had for next to nothing. Give the guy card board, aluminum cans, items you’d toss because it isn’t worth your time. Then give him a list of the types of items you might need. Such a guy probably already knows where such items can be had for next to nothing.

I also suggest thinking outside the box. It’s easy to get tunnel vision. In your case “I need to make raised beds 20inches deep”. I’d reword the problem… what you really need is dirt deep enough to grow potatoes, not a raised bed 20” deep. Redefining the problem gives you more options. And more room to think outside the box… pardon the pun.

Old cast iron tubs make great raised beds. How many bathrooms get upgraded and redone in your area each week? Our local junk man knows every contractor in town and keeps up with home reno’s. I don’t doubt he knows where a few tubs might be found. We’ve used them here on the farm for decades. Make good flower (or veggie) beds, water troughs for cattle etc.

 

[Bacpacker]

I am probably going to do this ... I have a LOT ... i mean a LOT, like several tons, of cut-down/bulldozed trees here. Gotta be careful though ... bad guys hide in those piles.

Also a lot of rotten/decomposing straw and goat poop where I've raked it out of the barn where the goats hang out

Maybe even use some dirt out of the chicken run

Look into Hugelkutur.

What Is Hugelkultur? Building the Ultimate Raised Bed

 

[Heartbroken]

My cheap alternative: scrounged barn tin, straw bales, and cedar fenceposts. I wanted to do raise beds but was appalled at the crazy high cost of the prebuilt versions. Then I remembered I had a pile of old barn tin out back that my brother dropped off for me to take to the salvage yard. Cedar fence posts were the cheapest form of wood I could find, and the local lumberyard sells the spacer sticks out of the lumber loads for .25 a piece, they're generally 3 to 4' long.
I cut the fence posts to the same height as the barn tin is wide, about 29". Set them up as corners, and screwed the barn tin to them. Then used the spacer sticks to create 'X' frames inside to stabilize the sheets so they wouldn't bow out too badly when filled. I put bales of straw in them then covered the bales with soil. The most expensive part of the whole build was the bags of soil. This picture is from the first build; I've since gone back and put cedar fence planks along the sides to cover the sharp top edge of the barn tin, and added some more beds.
I'm really happy with how it worked out. For the additional beds I filled them with bark and logs and branches before adding the topsoil. I do have to add more as the straw bales break down and collapse, but not too much, it's staying pretty stable. I didn't dig into the subsoil at all, or even set the posts in. Everything is just sitting on top.

 

[Proud Prepper]

I appreciate the thought ... but there's no driving anything into this ground. It's 6 inches of topsoil and then intermittent boulders ranging from basketball to "volkswagen". No digging ... no driving. The fence guys actually to use hammer drills and masonry bits to set t-posts

Rebar just 6 inches in ground or even 4 inches, then pack dirt/clay into the center of each block will hold them all together. 2 in each block is all you need.

 

[Magpie]

I am probably going to do this ... I have a LOT ... i mean a LOT, like several tons, of cut-down/bulldozed trees here. Gotta be careful though ... bad guys hide in those piles.

Also a lot of rotten/decomposing straw and goat poop where I've raked it out of the barn where the goats hang out

Maybe even use some dirt out of the chicken run

Just wondering if you could 'speed up' the soil process? Like someone said, make friends with your local 'junkman' - but also with a farmer or stable owner- free compost. We sourced for a free roughly two huge round bales of straw for chicken bedding, they had broken up and the farmer just dumped them in my drive and we put it on tarp to drag to the barn. I've used it in the base of of raised beds also. Its been going for two years now. He got a banana bread in return also look into making a wormery, and keep an eye out on building sites, there may be a trailer load of good soil free to take away. Just scope out you aren't getting strange weeds.

 

[joel]

..Have you considered...

My Son is doing Great with this technique (can't "dig up" the yard of the Rented house he's in, so.. 'Raised beds', is the only option.. But, this way, he can 'take them With him' (emptied, of course..) when he moves..)

IIRC, can get 'food grade' (even used, ie: ones that hauled pickles, etc - Doubt the carrots, etc will 'care about pickle-stink residue' are maybe ~$30-50. each, and additionally, 'segregated' like this, allows you to 'tailor the Soil' / fertilization / pest-control, etc to each-whatever you're planting.. Also, easier to 'shade tent' (vs a Giant bed..)

Just a thought, Godspeed to you..
jd

I got these for plants & they work wonders.
They are great for figs & blueberries, that can not be planted in the ground.

 

[thankful_k]

OK, so I pulled apart half the first bed and double-stacked the first half, and used the remaining room for the three metal beds. I cut up some of the wood I mentioned and stacked it in the bottom hugelkultur-style and then covered with 50% topsoil and 50% mushroom compost.

and now I just realized I forgot to put the hardware cloth on the bottom ... ARRRRRGHHHH!!!! I'll get them on the next two

First the sticks

Then the soil

 

[UrbanHunter]

OK, so I pulled apart half the first bed and double-stacked the first half, and used the remaining room for the three metal beds. I cut up some of the wood I mentioned and stacked it in the bottom hugelkultur-style and then covered with 50% topsoil and 50% mushroom compost.

and now I just realized I forgot to put the hardware cloth on the bottom ... ARRRRRGHHHH!!!! I'll get them on the next two

First the sticks

View attachment 106712View attachment 106711View attachment 106713

Then the soil

View attachment 106714View attachment 106715

View attachment 106716

I know I'm a little late to this, you have already got everything together but I wanted to share the post that @Neb made in the gardening 2023 thread. Looks like a nice solution too. Note his use of wire cloth in the bottom of the container. I had to go that route to keep the gophers and other tunneling critters out of my beds too.
https://www.homesteadingforum.org/threads/garden-2023.17552/page-7#post-546842

 

[Bacpacker]

Looks good Thankful

 

[Weedygarden]

I have raised beds that are only 12 inches tall with cardboard on the bottom and hardware cloth to keep the viles out. 4th year.

This sounds like a great design. Sometimes, if you are a scrounger, you can find all kinds of things for free or cheap. When I set my mind on a goal or project, I keep looking on Craigslist, Nextdoor Neighbor and Facebook Marketplace for deals and free stuff.

I have gotten many landscape timbers made of cedar for free.