The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Growing => Vegetables => Topic started by: Guy on February 04, 2008, 12:04:06 pm
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Hi.
We are in the process of building 8 new raised beds. I have read lots of articles on the benefits of the different ways of constructing/digging and preparing them. I would be keen for any first hand tips or information about what has gone well for you or any pit falls to avoid.
Thanks all
G.
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look at mine, then do the opposite, as I have done a rush job last year, and now they have collapsed. so i will be eager for some tips. ( apart from spending too much brass on materials).
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Hi, Guy
There's another thread on here somewhere about building raised beds...
Rosemary
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yes there is another thred, but in the meantime my advice (two weeks into my 'raised bed project') is not to make them too large. We used twelve new sleepers (2.6 m long) to make three boxes, screwed them together - all fine albeit very heavy. Then we tried to get them level (lots of random red bricks stuffed in various places. Looks pretty but took a while to get there. We have also made 70cm paths all around with weed matting (1m wide) this was a good idea as we pulled the matting into the inside of the sleeper and up the inside edge. This will hopefully prevent soil seeping from any gaps caused by the brickwork or undulations.
The we came to fill them. .........
We stupidly thought that a tonne of top soil in each together with the remnants of a bonfire and a couple of bags of dung would do the job. Well 3 tonnes later we are half way there. We need about another 2 or so tonnes of mulch or dung/straw to bulk them up.
In addition to putting two tonnes of gravel on the paths we have got fairly fit!
Ultimately we will put a cage over the whole thing.
It has been a longer job and more expensive than expected and with hind sight I would have spent more time levelling the ground and been less ambitious but I think we will end up with the mother of all veggie patches protected from clay soil and deer. :o
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try mixing some gypsum in with the clay. It breaks it up well, over a year or so.
An easy way to calculate the amount of soil needed: one ton of soil is very roughly a cubic yard . It depends on all sorts of things to be exact i.e. type of top soil , how moist it is , how many stones etc.... But it is easy to work out, one cubic yard will cover 3 square yards one foot deep or six sq ft six inches deep, you get the idea..... If you use the gypsum on the clay beneath the top soil,and add plenty of compost , you can gradually mix/dig deeper into the ground each year . Don't worry about filling the bed from the start, you will get depth soon enough . I know everyone does things their own way ....and this would just be mine , yours is just different (NOT wrong) to mine. I just go with the cheapest and easiest way!!! Good luck with whatever you do though.....cheers
Russ
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Some scary figures there, looks like a much bigger job than first anticipated , although some really good builds to be getting on with-Thanks a lot.
Better start shovelling and cancelling any gym memberships - looks like I shall get enough work outs with the beds!! :D Will update when we are well underway
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where can you find gypsum ???
my soil is very clay (not using the clay for veg see my bit on raised bed thread ) but the rest of the garden is clay soil the kind that you measure about another 2 inches taller with ever new step lol
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you can get it from some garden nurseries , or just get some from the builders yard , gypsum = plaster. I can't remember which one to get now , but if you tell the builders yard people that you just want a basic gypsum , they should give you the right one. But failing that Linz , my soil was very much clay under about 9" of top soil, I just added plenty of compost and manure . You can also grow a green manure of alfalfa and after it has been growing about 6-8 weeks dig it in . The clay I had was even blue in some big areas ,(that generally means waterlogged airless clay) that has all gone now and the soil is really nice loamy crumbly stuff on the whole. It is also like that down two really good fork depths , so it can be done and doesn't take that long . The gypsum , by the way , makes the tiny smooth clay flat particles stick together, to form a larger more irregular shaped particle. These new particles form what looks like crumbly soil and allows more air into the ground and therefore the roots of the plants.
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thanksfor this i'll have to have a good at that, being that it is plaster i would presume it alters the soil type to more of a lime contents (alcoline)
?
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in short no.... gypsum doesn't change the ph of the soil . Gypsum is calcium sulphate and will add calcium to your soil . It isn't a good idea to add gypsum to soil if the ph is below 5 or 5.5 if I remember correctly? , as it releases soil aluminium . This is a poison to plants, once again I hope I have remembered correctly !! So check your soils ph ...if below 5.5 add lime to bring above 5.5 then add gypsum to add calcium and stick clay particles together, to make a more loamy type soil . If you had old lime plaster ,or mortar ? , that would change the ph . It would be hard to work out though, as it would take a long time to release the lime into the soil .
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Hi all
Just to butt in for a moment,
where do you get topsoil from?
The area where we have had the fosse septique put is just solid clay and puddles like mad when it rains,
Although I would say most of our 'soil' is clay.
thanks
Steve
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sorry ..no idea where you would get it from in France.....but top soil is just sub soil with the addition of organic matter , basically anyway. So therefore if you can add organic matter , ie manure/ compost etc. then you will be creating a top soil . The addition of gypsum will aid the clay particles to stick together, and therefore aid drainage and aeration . Growing a green manure crop will help to ...just grow something like alfalfa/lucerne , and dig it in after 8-10 weeks or so . You can just buy it in but there really is no need unless you don't have enough depth of ANY soil . All you need is a good spade and or fork , some riggers type gloves , very cheap but really save the old hands ,and some time and a good strong back ...or a high pain threshold. ;) ::) Just get as much compost /manure in as possible and you will be away . Does that help at all mate ?
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Hi Russ
not even dandelions are growing where the fosse has been put, I could just buy a kiln I suppose,
well done for spotting that we are in France, I forgot to mention that.
Steve
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not much will grow in it if it is just clay !!! It has no air or nutrients in it , or the nutrients are locked up . But add organic matter and therefore nutrients , air and a good soil structure and you will be able to grow anything in it ..including loads of weeds... ::) ;D
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hi all. I also have three raised beds over almost rock in an old quarry. The manure I put in to the beds in January has failed to break up and still is in great clods. The soil is also very clayey and wet. I was wondering if the gypsum treatment. Has anyone needed to put drainage into their raised beds if there isn't much soil underneath them? the soil does seem very wet, even though we haven't had much rain (I am in devon, where not much rain means it hasn't rained every day!!)
Kate
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Hello Kate,
when you say rock do you mean literally solid rock or just stone or shale ? If it is solid rock then water won't be able to drain away ...even shale could be compact enough to stop drainage !! was there a lot of standing water on the area you now use for your beds? if so it could be that the water table is higher than the level of the soil. what I mean by that is : you are in an old quarry , so stone/rock has been removed altering the original ground level . Water could be seeping out of higher ground ,or even the ground below your beds? , effectively making a small shallow pond.
The gypsum would help the clay , but you still need to expose as much of the clay to it as possible ie dig and break up the clay as small as possible, then add the gypsum . Over time it changes the structure of the clay to a more friable type of soil . The manure should have broken down a bit by now , but I don't like to put it in too big to start with ...it does take longer to break down if left very large. To break down the manure will need plenty of worms to get to work on it first , are there any in the soil ? If it is very clay like then it will be fairly inert , so therefore not much in the way of microbes and the like . All needed to help break down organic material, and neither of which will survive long in waterlogged soil, as they need air to survive. If it is that waterlogged then you will have what boils down to an anaerobic compost heap. Thats the type that stinks, and tends to be slimey, aso like the stinkey stuff/mud at the bottom of ponds and lakes, which is basically rotting organic material such as leaves and the like.
You will have to work out if your veggie bed is acting as a sump for the surrounding area. If it is then you would have to lift it up above the water level , or drain the surrrounding area. If the clay has blue streaks in it then that is a good sign that it is waterlogged. If it is really wet then it may also smell like methane/sulphur or rotten eggs.
I would try and compost the manure on its own first . If it doesn't have much straw in it already then get some more and mix in with the manure , let it heat up then turn the heap , let it heat up again and then turn again . Do this 4 or 5 times , you will then have what looks and smells like peat , sort of , good compost . Hope some of that helps a bit anyway....good luck with it ...
cheers
Russ
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i rent a 100 metre sq plot from our local coucil and we have a very good and enthusiastic allotment manager who is very keen that everyone grows well.
ive been wanting proper raised beds on the allotment ever since i took it on 2 years ago so dispite the extra costs we hired a rotavator yesturday which OH immediately took charge of, i was given the task of doing a walk thru to take out any rubbish and stones. it looked lovely after he had finished and only wish that id had the funds to have done rotavated it in the first place.
then today after sorting out what wood we had and then popping into our local wicks to buy some more boards, between us we have made 11 raised beds 6ft by 3ft (miscalculated and ran out of ends to finish the 12th one :)), still need to finish off with some compost but im feeling very proud of our hard work. also have to sort out where im putting the raspberries as need some posts im on the look out for anything i can reuse for that project
im going to be working on a 4 crop rotation with 3 beds each, this is a much larger project than ive grown before here or in the garden and im expecting it to be alot more time consuming initially.
we built our compost area from pallets and at the moment use large plastic containers to store rain water as no water on tap at our site. i did spend more than i really wanted on wood but having raised beds is going to be so much better 8)
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Well done, you! Sounds like you had a very busy and productive day. You'll not regret the raised beds.
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I totally agree Rosemary. I was thinning out a couple of rows of turnip seedlings the other day, I just put a folding chair next to the raised bed and there you go. I cant imagine how painful it would have been for my back let alone my knees if I had had to get down on the ground to do it!
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ihave set up a couple of raised bed notvery big but managable size they are notvery high but i was thinking that i could add both soil and wood over years, I was lucky and i have been given some wood(via a local freecycle group) to do my project with, as i found that buy would can be costly.
For DIY stores if you have a no frill near you (the onlyone i have found in in newport south wales. They are really cheap for diy stuff and brilliant )
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hi fluffy, wish we had a local freecycle scheme near us, what are you planning to grow?
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tank girl were abouts are you?
it's not that difficult to set on up.
:)
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I spent the good part of yesterday making my raised beds spaniel proof. What did he do this morning? ran head first into one and nearly knocked himself out ::)
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lol wish you had a video lol,
Yesterday nothing done on the garden front, but did get some plants from the freecycle Auchterarder meet also got some liquid gold in the way of worm peeee brilliant jobbies lol. Am knackered now cos i got home from that to go and do a house moving for a friend and did nt get home untill about 10.00o'clock at night.
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Gypsum adds calcium to your soil. The calcium replaces the magnesium in the soil. It is the magnesium that gives clay soil the stickiness when the soil is wet and it also gives it its concrete texture when dry. Lime will also add calcium but will also change the ph level of your soil. This is good if your soil is acid but not so if the soil is alkaline.
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ooooooooohhhhhhh that the sciencific bit lol
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Hello all, just found this one about raised beds and I have a question.......
Does anyone have any suggestions as to where I could get some very high raised beds ( does such a thing even exist ? ), or are they the sort of thing I will have to make individually to suit ? - i.e. using an enormous stack of rather ugly tar covered railway sleepers !!
My better half has restricted mobility - the price of having two children - and has difficulty bending / lifting etc. We are in the process of buying a smallholding ( in Devon ) and, wanting to be as self sufficient as possible, are looking forward to trying to grow our own edibles.
Growing everything at ground level would prevent her from joining in. I think the bed would have to be completely detached from the ground ( i.e. on legs ) otherwise I would just have rather large floor mounted boxes requiring many tons of soil to fill.
Any suggestions ( other than she spends all day supervising !! ) gratefully received.
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um riased pallet bed ?
I think you mayhave to make it yourself or possible get a carpanter/joiner to do it.
on googling found this
(http://z.about.com/d/landscaping/1/0/j/4/raised_beds_10.jpg)
http://landscaping.about.com/od/landscapinginsmallspaces/ss/small_yards.htm (http://landscaping.about.com/od/landscapinginsmallspaces/ss/small_yards.htm)
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Anyone see Gardeners World last night? A couple set up an allotment syndicate for people without gardens. They use empty inner city spaces. Anyway,my point,instead of digging vast areas,they use those fabric,cubic metre bags that gravel and sand get delivered in these days. They cut down the tops from 90cm to 70cm,fill with topsoil delivered to site,and hey presto,hundreds of raised beds and no digging.Great for access to wheelchair users too. Just wish I had seen this program a few months ago and saved myself endless hours of digging.
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i was very impressed with what that couple has acieved especially as alot of the people who now use the 'bag' beds have never had access to a garden before, and a brill idea for a raised bed, im very envious of their water tower too!
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yeah i watch it to and was very impressed especially as it was in the centre of the city too.
Linz