Different Strokes for Different Conditions

In my book and pamphlets I call this my salad bowl. It's a raised bed with everything you need for a salad. I give my bowl a little water during the hot days. It should give me great lettuce.

I don't grow things one way all the time. I also have lettuce growing in a depression. Hay bales had decomposed in the trench previously and the soil became rich composted soil that any gardener would dream of.

So what is the difference? Lettuce is lettuce. It all has to do with the labor of watering. The lettuce in the depression (about two inches from the surface) hardly ever needs watering. The raised bed I must water daily during hot dry conditions.

The depressed bed is cooler being grown lower  than the surface. It needs less water. Raised beds are dryer being higher. Would this depressed bed work in Oregon or some wet place. Probably not. Too much water could rot out your lettuce. I really don't know unless someone tries it.  But I can tell you by experience that this method works great here in hot Missouri. 

Don't let your family stop you from experimenting. I know many times everything is done the same old way with the same old results. Be creative and experiment. You might come across the best way to grow in your area. Every year has different conditions for growth, you might have to try different methods each year. For instance, if I had a wet year, raised beds would be ideal for growing lettuce.

This is my radish depressed bed. I weed some, almost everytime I harvest some vegetables. If you are down on your knee anyway, you might as well pull up some weeds. I never weed when the plants are young. When plants are young they are easily disturb by you yanking up the weed next to them. 

I don't grow weeds between my beds. I try to grow alfalfa and clover. They fix nitrogen in the soil and are less pervasive. Lettuce like high growing alfalfa near them. It keeps them cool during the dry windy days.

Some weeds or unwanted plants are more manageable than others. Why not be in charge of your weeds by growing what you want. This bed has spring wheat. It is grass but believe me it is a lot easier to remove than weed grasses. Also I love the look of wheat tassles growing in a garden or flower bed.  

I read that epimediums love water. I looked at mine and it was bone dry. I put down a layer of wood chips with soil on top. I then added biochar plus wood chip mixture on top again with more soil on top. There is nothing like using wood chips if you have them. Most wood are still free, but some wood trimming companies are now charging a fee. Give them a call and get a truck load.