Raised Wood Beds

I saw a raised bed garden today that was stunning. All new wood and loads of great soil. I like what I saw and I gave them a plus up in their post.

If you read about the sales pitch of raised bed gardening it sounds magical, NO WEEDS, NO PESTS, LITTLE WATERING, and LITTLE CARE.

I can't wait to try it. OH NO, I did already. I remember all the wood (I used Oak wood) I wasted in making the beds. The wood did not last but fora few years. If I continued, I would have to be making more beds.

Let's now talk about the soil you will need in order to make a raised bed. I nearly killed my self trying to fill all those beds with soil. The more I gave them soil, the more they compacted and wanted more soil.

I wish I could say there were no weeds. Unless your medium or soil is perfect (not a lot of clay) you might have few weeds. I used the soil on my property and  it made bricks of weeds and clay instead of growing healthy garden plants.

By calling my raised bed a brick, I meant the clay compacted and became so hard that I could not pull a weed. I finally put my rototiller in the raised beds and tried to dig the weeds out.

I don't want you to hate me, but my raised beds did not work without lots of hard work. I could go on about the sow bugs and other bugs that found refuge in the decaying wood bed. Insects love decaying or wet wood. Try to find the offending pest and they are off hiding in the raised bed frames.

Did you know you should double dig raised beds every year. My raised bed hated a shovel. I slammed my shovel into the raised bed and it would bounce off the brick raised bed and fly back and hit me.

Weeding a raised bed was horrendous. The grass knew how to connect to the wood of your bed and hang on for dear life. Be careful pulling the weeds around the wood or it might all come apart.

Before making a raised bed study about root depths of your plant, your raised bed might not be raised high enough. And above all, make sure you have enough money for all the expense. I know I'm cheap but if gardening is more than buying the produce then why bother gardening.