Deliberate Agrarian
Snippet #1

Making Raised Beds

14 April 2014

Click picture to see an enlarged view

In Jean-Martin Fortier's excellent book, The Market Gardener (click to read my past review), he explains how he grows vegetables on permanent raised beds that are 30" wide, with an 18" walkway between them. I already have some raised beds in my garden that are 42" wide with an 18" walkway, but I think I will like the 30" width better. So I have made 14 such beds in part of my garden. Two are pictured above. The one on the right is raked off and finished. The one on the left needs to be raked. I rake first to shape the mounded soil with an aluminum landscape rake (visible in the background), then finish with a metal leaf rake. The just-made beds are 9" above the walkway, but they will settle in time to half of that. 



2 comments:

Cyndi Lewis said...

We too are going to do raised beds like that after reading market gardener. We were going to start them today but are adverse to working in the pouring down rain.

Anonymous said...

Gardening in Florida, I always do raised beds like this....we get frequent downpours of 2-3 inches, which would drown my plants if they weren't elevated!!!


Goatlover