What Are The Benefits Of Raised Bed Gardening For You?

What Are The Benefits Of Raised Bed Gardening For You?

Article by Jeffery Thompson

Making and planting a raised bed vegetable garden can be very beneficial to you and your vegetables. I will discuss building a raised garden bed and the pros and cons of raised bed gardening. After reading this article you should be able to decide if a raised vegetable garden bed is the right solution for you.

Why should you make a raised garden bed? There are several reasons, but two of the main reasons, are that there are poor soil conditions in your area or there is poor water drainage on your property. By making a raised bed for your garden, you are able to put the kind of soil you need for raising the plants you want. Also with a raised bed, the water will drain easily so that your plants will not die with too wet of soil.

When building your raised garden, you want to pick a location that gets full sun. Most vegetables require full sun to grow properly. It would be nice if the area is flat, but you can level your bed by digging in to the landscape on the high areas. You can make your bed out of almost any thing, such as wood, rocks, bricks or cement blocks. Wood is usually the product of choice, because it is easy to work with and less expensive than the other choices.

For best results, make your bed long and narrow, about 3 feet wide, then you can access all your vegetables without stepping on the soil and compacting it. The depth of the raised garden is up to you, but if you want carrot or parsnips, the deeper the better. Twelve inches deep is a great depth for all vegetables.

You can prepare your site in two ways for your raised bed gardening. The easiest way but probably not the best way, is to place several layers of news paper or cardboard down over the existing ground cover. You should mow the sod as low as you can first though.

The other way is to dig out the existing sod and loosen the soil below your garden to a depth of eight to twelve inches. Doing this gives your garden extra depth and good drainage. This is especially important if you are planning on growing the root vegetables such as carrots, parsnips and potatoes.

Construct the frame around your garden. You should now level your bed from all directions. This is very important, because if your bed is not level, the water will run off in some areas of your bed and will sit in other parts of your bed. To level the frame, remove some of the soil beneath the frame in the high areas. Once your frame is set, add your top soil and then you are ready to plant.

If you look at these instructions I have laid out, you will see that there is a lot of work involved. I