Raised Beds
Why would anyone want to go to the trouble of making raised beds if they don’t need to? The only reasons that I can come up with is to help to drain the allotment or for people who cannot bend down easily.
I have raised the whole of my allotment to get running water off it. Being near the top of a hill means that springs emerge in several places. I have burried two 6 inch diameter pipes across the allotment to drain them and with 3 soak aways under the paths this is coping with the water and the top is rarely too wet to walk on.
In the past I have sunk up to the top of my wellingtons, if not more, at this time of year. Eric suggested a long time ago that I should raise the allotment with upright slabs. They were more than adequate. The only downside of them is that they allow little trickles of soil to escape through the joins. This really is skirting around the fact that they are blooming heavy and take a lot of heaving about to get them planted in into the soil with any kind of asthetic effect. I would not advise you to do this particulary around a 30 by90 allotment.
At its lowest the allotment is about 18 inches above the trackway. At its highest it is about 2ft above the trackway, although where I have burried the brushwood it is much higher in the middle of the allotment. It looks quite dome shaped. The streams bubble out under the slabs and onto the path so you can imagine the state of the path at the moment. Still it keeps the nutters off the allotments because they don’t like walking through quagmire.
One of my next jobs is to take all the slabs out along the path to the tap and make sure that this bed is square. It is really irritating that, when planting rows of vegetables there is a triangle of soil that is useless to plant in effectively and is left to the weeds. I just need to straighten up this bed and then I will move the path over a little. This old path was laid on top soil so I am going to take a spit out where the path is going to go and replace it with stones removed from the Council soil. Both Don and Tony, who got the Council soil too, have been removing stones avidly and leaving them by my allotment. I will have plenty especially as I am going to bury the old greenhouse concrete foundations too. I will use the topsoil to raise where the greenhouse used to be because it is a little low. I might put slabs along the other side of the path too because this soil is getting high and falling onto the path in places. It will get even worse when I take out the apple mint and the raspberries.
I have got to find somewhere good for the apple mint. I planted it here because, when I walk up to the tap, I crush some of the mint leaves and it smells really good.
Aromatherapy - gardeners had this a long time before it got fashionable.
Which brings me back to raised beds - as opposed to raised allotments. Is this just a fashion too or is there some good horticultural reason for using them. There are too many paths for me to be doing with. If I am paying for the ground I want the maximum to be for growing. I have three paths. One to the tap and used to be to the greenhouse before I took it down. Another is to the new shed. The third is to two big water buts and along the raspberry row.
So why raised beds? Has anyone done any comparison of yeild from raised verses ground level gardening? Is there a relationship between the hight off the ground and the yeild you get from the raised bed? Should we be building 8ft, 12ft or higher beds? Should we be putting vegetables into a large wooden box and raise it up into the air with a tower crane? Should we be suspending raised bed boxes from hot air balloons. Maybe the best effects would be on the Space Station… What do I know? I’m just a simple allotment gardener. Keep talking bull shit - it is good for the allotment, Tone.
I woudl suggest, and I only have anecdotal evidence for ths, that gardeners that go to all the trouble of making wooden skirts for their beds are also those that have a lot of time on their hands and spend it carefully cultivating their works of art. If you are going to all the trouble of making easy access beds then you are going to make sure that you easily access them as often as you possibly can. This is what produces large yeilds of beautiful vegetables.
In my opinion yeild is all down to the enthusiasm of the gardener. Those that put the hard work in will reap the rewards of a good harvest. And this will be regarless of elevation.
Which brings me to Roundup…
New allotmenteers are sometimes discouraged because their allotments are covered in brambles, nettles and couch grass.
There seems to be three camps for allotment clearing.
- Spray, slash and burn
- Cover with black plastic and wait for a couple of years.
- Do a bit of gardening and dig the weeds out. It is harder work but far more satisfying.
So, what do we have an allotment for? Do we put in that much work for chemical covered vegetables that we could easily buy down at the nearest supermarket? Do we go down to the allotment to breath in noxious chemicals that we can easily breath in down by the nearest main road?
I would rather put my hands in good rich soil that is not contaminated by man made chemicals. I would rather eat vegetables that do not have to grow in contaminated soil.
I am in the hard work camp. Get your spade and fork out and do some graft.
Now some will moan that they do not have time to dig out all the weeds. Well if that is so, why are you cultivating an allotment in the first place because it does not get easier.
If you have no time to clear, you have no time to maintain. They are equally time consuming. Chemicals will do things sooner but why not cut out the middle man and go direct to the supermarket because you will get the same…
To all you chemical fiends - not near my allotment please.
