[Ann and Rob]

How big would you suggest the ideal raised bed to be?

[bloomer]

between 4 and 5 ft wide and as long as you want, the idea of that width is you can reach the middle from the paths without climbing on the bed. Some people argue that if they are too long you will get fed up walking round the ends if you want to change sides...


unless you have health mobility issues that require them at waist height for easy weeding, a depth of 8 to 13 inches is fine (13 inches is a standard scaffold plank) dig over the ground where the beds going then build the bed and then fill up with your growing medium.

[doganjo]

Agreed, and mine are hip height so I can have a wee seat when I'm tired, and i can just poke about at the weeds. 

[cloddopper]

Remember for a lot of veg you only need 6 inches of highly fertile soil9 I was very surprised till I started to practice this  ) to grow them in.

So you can fill the bottom of a raised bed with a poorer soil .. even to putting in a layer of rubble if the beds are that deep & blind it with the poor soil . Then  put down a double layer of weed suppression fleece , then add the  6 inches of quality soil that you either beg , steal ,  buy in ready made  or make up as per a John Innes type formula it .

[Lesley Silvester]

My three foot high raised beds were filled with part rotted manure. I know that nothing needs to be planted that deep but I have more than enough of it (and the goats produce it faster than I can use it) so it made more sense than buying something to put in there. I then plant into pockets of potting compost.

[suziequeue]

I make mine out of 10 x 2 boards. They are 4ft wide and god knows how long - about 10m I think. We are on heavy clay so we rotavate the soil, secure the boards in and fill with imported top soil and well rotted pig manure. The most recent batch had about 3000 worms per square foot!! Each bed takes about 2 and a half tonnes though - all of which I have put in manually with a wheel barrow.


We are only growing out of one this year and plant everything through holes in mypex but by next spring we should have six in place.

[doganjo]

How do you keep mice, rats and pigeons out?  All netted?

[Ina]

How do you keep mice, rats and pigeons out?  All netted?

Mine are all netted/fleeced/meshed/covered in wire cages... To keep cats out - and cabbage whites - the rest hasn't been a problem here, probably because of all the cats!

[doganjo]

I kept the pigeons out with net last year but hadn't noticed a couple of gaps or maybe not fine enough mesh and had all my brassicas eaten overnight by caterpillars. 

[cloddopper]

Last year I went away for three days & came back to several beds of light green skeletons where my greens had been .

Other than the begining of April this year I haven;'t seen a cabbage white so far .. is this the lull before the storm ...

 I've got two bottles of Plant Rescue bug spray handy  so they can have a dose before we go away , the house sitter will put a second one on mid way through the holiday .

 As far as I can see , you can't be an organic grower for long if you keep going away on holiday ...
To misquote an old saying " Whilst you're away , the bugs will play"  .

[Ina]

 As far as I can see , you can't be an organic grower for long if you keep going away on holiday ...
To misquote an old saying " Whilst you're away , the bugs will play"  .

On the organic farm  where I've been packing veg boxes, just about everything is covered in mesh. However, this stuff does occasionally get blown off in the not-so-rare storms we have; it's a lot of fun trying to catch and kill a butterfly under the net!  They've also learned to keep the doors to the poly tunnel closed/netted at all times... I'll never forget the day I tried to get a pheasant out of there who was hiding amongst the pumpkins.