planning my raised beds.....

hi guys do you think this look OK....for my two 1meter squared beds? or am i trying to squeeze to much in?

also will what ive got planned be ok growing with each other? as in the onion's/garlic/spuds in one bed with the beans/chilli's/toms in the other bed? or shall i rethink the whole lot? this is hard lol :(

layout 1 by Martin Young, on Flickr​

 

My community garden consists mainly of raised beds divided up into 1m sq. plots which are allocated to each member so I have a little experience of this.

Timing, planting location and watering are what you need to consider when space is restricted. Also, think about going vertical.

Garlic, onions, and potatoes in one plot is doable.

Plant the garlic and onions in autumn at the front where it will get exposed to the most sunlight. Harvest will be around July/August the following year unless, like me, you also trim the green tips early for stir-fries and garnishes.

Leave a space for the potatoes at the back as they grow tall and the foliage will put everything under shade otherwise. For this reason, you should loosely tie together or construct a barrier (like a bamboo fence) in order to keep the potato foliage segregated.

Plant the potatoes around April at varying depths, max 6 potatoes. Harvest will be around September.


The runner bean/chilli/tomato combination is a bit tricky, mainly because the tomato has a high watering requirement (they love plenty of water). With beans and chilli, you should water well then leave it to almost dry out before the next watering.

However, this is not to say that growing them altogether is impossible - its just that yields will be affected.

 

I can't agree that tomatoes have a very high watering requirement. I water mine no more than twice a week and have a great crop. The secret is to water at regular intervals, irregular watering causes cracks and splitting in the tomatoes. Too much watering causes calcium deficiency.
Having said that I agree that beans and chillies are not the best companions for tomatoes, I would, and in the past have, planted tomatoes with carrots, cauliflower, onions, basil, rosemary parsley, and sage as these all need a similar amount of water.

 

i totally underestimated my space!!! lol i forgot to add space for paths! so all has now changed, i will update you at the end after i have replied

Hey misterQ wow i did not know onions take from autumn to july/august...thats very long, thanks for the potatoe tip, i will make a kind of barrier, info like this is so helpful as it will be my 1st time for growing a lot of stuff when i get my beds made

Thanks also for the chilli/bean/toms pointer too! i will re think that combination....

your right, it would be nice to have decent yields, so i dont mind juggling some plants about, or swapping them for a different veggy, im open minded if its a better grow space for the plants

Hey lykwakewalker, thanks for the tomatoe pointers also mate, good to know they like to be fed at a regular time, just like the kids lol yes i will be arranging different now, not going with the bean/chilli/tom combo....

WELL a little bit of planning today and i noticed i didnt leave any space for paths!...DOH!
i was going to come level to the shed, but now with added space for paths i really have no choice but to come out further past the shed, so im now planning on having 2 raised beds, both 800mm x 2500mm with a 650mm path down the middle with a 750mm path around the whole perimeter....does this sound ok so far?....

once ive got this bit sorted i can buy the timber and then properly start planning whats getting planted where etc, one last thing, my soil is terrible, im in a new build and it really clay like, i was thinking of going to a height of about 400mm for the height of the beds, does this sound ok also? bet its going to cost a bomb to fill these lol.... here is my quick pic of the planned beds...

new bigger plan for veggy beds... by Martin Young, on Flickr​

 

Hi again @Tingting
Do you need the 650mm path down the middle? If you didn't have that path you would have an extra 650mm X 2500mm to grow your veg. You could reach from all of your outside paths. I have raised beds and I can easily lean over/reach just over a metre to plant and weed etc.
Just a thought mate but with space quite tight you don't want to be giving it up for paths.

 

Hi lykewakewalker, do you not think i will need the path down the middle then? if that were not there i suppose i could do one big raised bed, and seeing as the lengths of timber come at 2.4 meter lengths i could do a 2.4m x 2.4m bed? do you think i would not have any trouble reaching the plants in the middle then mate? i just tried to reach the middle of the 2.4 bed which ive made a layout on the grass at the moment from bamboo sticks, and i cant even reach the middle, im not that short, im 5ft 9"

 

Hi @Tingting44. Obviously it is up to you whether you put a path down or not. My beds are 45cm high, 2.4m long and most of them are 1.2m from front to back (the back is against a fence) Although only slightly taller than you I can easily reach over to tend to mine, albeit by putting one hand down when reaching the back, I can easily reach if I am using a trowel, hand fork or a hoe.
From your original plan you look as if you want to grow quite a bit so I am simply suggesting why waste space with a path.

 

thanks a lot mate for your wisdom, thats settled then, im going to do away with the path in the middle mine will be about the height of yours beds also, im going with 3 layers of 6x2 for the bed giving me a height of 18 inches, thanks for the insight to your experience also, would you have a pic of your setup? would love a gander lol, by the way how much do you think money wise ill be looking to fill my bed with soil? it would be soil i fill it with right? also where it will be a single bed, how will i go about say growing potatoes which like a lot of manure (ive read lol) with say another veg next to it that does not like manure in the soil?

 

Hi again
When I get the chance I will take a few pictures and put them on for you.
I don't grow maincrop potatoes, only first/second early and I don't grow them in the raised beds because of the room that they take up, I have a couple of separate areas for potatoes and beans. The area where the potatoes were is now ready for a planting of winter onions sets at the end of this month.
Unlike your proposal I only grow one crop in each raised bed, so at the moment I have sprouts in one, leeks in one and carrots just about finishing in another and one empty where the summer onions were.
I have just "Googled" the cost of top soil in this area and multi purpose is £70 for 850kgs and vegetable top soil is £80 for 850kgs.
Again according to Google, you can work out the tonnage of top soil that you need by multiplying W x L x D of your bed then multiplying your answer by 1.7. I cannot vouch for this though and to be honest I would ask a local supplier to work out your requirement for you.

 

The volume of soil/compost required is calculated by measuring (or deducing) the internal L x W x D (in metres).

Compost is mostly sold with a quoted volume measured in litres (1 cubic metre = 1000 litres).

Soil is mostly sold with a quoted weight measured in Kilograms or tonnes (1000 kg = 1 ton), although, sometimes the volume is also stated.

Variance in the density of the growing media (eg compost) is probably the reason why only one unit of measure is used to state its quantity.

Deducing from your proposed build: L=2.35m, W=2.35m, D=0.4572

The approx. volume required = 2.52 cubic m = 2520 litres


In Hackney and other London boroughs, the council actually give away free compost as part of their recycling scheme. So it's worth contacting your local council to see if they run a similar scheme.

However, there are conditions, for example, in Hackney, the minimum order must be 15 tonnes (about a tipper trucks-worth) and you'd have to notify them a few months in advance of when you'd want it.

They do run free compost give-away events for smaller amounts in order to raise awareness and promote recycling but I find these events to be too popular - the compost will have gone by the time you have arranged transport to get there.


The cheapest shop-bought compost in my area is B&Q's Verve Multi-Purpose Compost 125L for £6.93.

So you would need 20 x 125L, at the cost of £138.60 in order to fill your proposed raised bed just under the brim.

 

Thanks that would be very nice to see your setup thank you ever so much for your wisdom, i know my google "fu" is weak :( lol

thank you for the info on the soil, very useful indeed! the compost is going to be expensive, more than i thought, will it be ok if i add a few bags of topsoil each week? over the winter

im nearly at the buy stage for my wood, would this wood be ok do you think, i really want 6x2 with 3 layers giving me a height of 18"
http://www.less2build.com/c16-treated-timber-6x2-2.4m

i cant wait just to get hands on now, all this planning is frying my head a bit, and will be nice when im at the building stage

 

Ok, my two penneth. I used to have raised beds for veg growing, each one 8'x4'. My view is that any wider and it would have been awkward with regards to reaching the middle from the sides. Ideally, you don't want to be standing on the soil. There's probably no great advantage in having beds any deeper 10" (mine were 8"). With regards to adding compost to make up the 'fill', I'd hang on until you've dug through the ground at the base of the beds. What I did was to make up the frames for the beds, put them in place, then take off the layer of grass and put to one side. I then took out a spade depth of soil, and put that to one side. I then just forked through the ground underneath, laid the grass turfs on top (upside down), then replaced the the soil. By this point the soil level was quite a bit higher than it was originally, so I didn't need as much 'fill' to top up the beds as originally thought. For the 'fill' I used MP compost mixed 50/50 with bagged topsoil (B&Q sell this). After some time, the ground will settle, and the level will drop, at which point you'll need to add more 'fill', but that is further down the line.
Hope that all makes sense

 

Hi Freddy, thanks for your input...really helpful.... thats good then ive decided for my 2 beds to be at a size of 8'x 3 1/2' so i should be able to reach the middles easily, and will give me plenty of space for what i am wanting to grow.

very interesting take on the depth of the raised bed, my thinking of 18" is a very high from 8"...... i was thinking of putting on the extra height as i have really bad clay soil, if i could get away with 8-10" for root crops that would save quite a bit on the timber cost, or instead of 3 layers of 6x2 i could go with 2 layers do you think? giving me a height of 12"....

great tips for prepping the ground and compost/soil mix, thank you very much, all noted down for when im at that stage! cant wait lol :D

 

What's the depth of your topsoil, before hitting clay?

 

id say maybe 2-3 inches.....its terrible, new build property, so no need to say any more lol :(

edit, i thought might as well not guess as ive not actually dug a hole yet, so i quickly dug a hole to about 6" and it does not look too bad to me.....what do you think, i all ways thought it was a lot of clay as i dug a row out next to the side of my shed to plant flowers and that was awfully clay like but this stuff where my beds are do not seem to be as bad....

soil-clay level by Martin Young, on Flickr​