As a response to the great article Admin just posted, I want to offer this as one means to starve the beast. My wife and I have installed around 100 square yards of raised garden beds for growing food. The amounts of food that can be produced by raised beds is truly astonishing. Some people get thousands of pounds of food each year from 100 yards of raised beds. We do not aim that high, but still we get tremendous amounts of food, and are able to give much away to family and friends.
I really cannot overstate the amount of food and the yields that are possible in raised beds, plus the work is much easier as the beds are, you know, raised, so bending is minimized. The output is much higher than in-ground production, and there are many systems that can be found with a bit of research that shows how to maximize output via spacing, etc. There is a start up cost, of course, in establishing the beds. It varies substantially depending on the height of the beds, access to soil and compost, watering system, or not, etc.
I have tracked the time we spend on 100 square yards and it comes to around 30 hours per year. That is it – thirty hours a year. Each season, when we rotate crops, it takes around 10 hours to prep the beds, and a couple hours to plant. After that, we simply do general tending as we are out harvesting. We do have a watering system in place, so we do not have to do that. As we harvest, we do general weeding, a bit of fertilising, though not much, as we compost well, and a bit of tidying up. Training tomatoes probably takes the most time. Here are samples of what we plant and approx. yields we get:
Potatoes – approximately 150 pound yield from around 15 square yards.
Tomatoes – more than we can eat, plus many quarts sauce from 6 square yards.
Green beans – about 40 pounds from 6 square yards. Broad beans in cooler weather.
Pumpkins – about 200 pounds from around 8 square yards of beds (plus need room for trailing vines).
Zucchini – more than you can ever eat from around 5 square yards.
Cucumbers – enough for salads from 3 square yards, bush variety, seasonal. Would need more for pickling.
Chard – endless all year from about 3 square yards. So much you get sick of it. We let it self-seed continually.
Onions – endless onions if old style walking (tree onions) and potato onions areused. Will grow much of the year and or can be kept. Also use as spring onions. They are smaller than store onions, but who cares? We use around 10 square yards, but could use less.
Garlic – 2 square yards for year supply.
Mixed salad vegetables – we use around 10 square yards rotated continuously, for rocket, lettuce, radish, carrots, parsnip, etc. You will get more than you can use. Rotate in spinach in cooler weather.
Peppers – we use about 7 square yards, and get all the seasonal peppers we can handle, plus I make hot sauces that last the entire year.
In winter we rotate in broccoli and cauliflower and spinach etc.
We grow about 5 square yards of strawberries.
We have citrus trees in raised beds, about 6 square yards, and get enormous yields of fruit.
The remaining approx. 20 yards get things like eggplant, beets, rutabaga, rhubarb, etc., plus seasonal dependent we are prepping and rotating various crops in.
So, if you want to start starving the beast, while feeding your family, I highly recommend getting a raised bed going. The hours involved are ridiculously few, especially given the enormous output. Plus working the soil, working with your hands, and knowing where your food comes from is tremendously satisfying. If you can find 10, 20, 50, or 100 square yards to grow food, particularly in a raised bed, I truly can recommend it as beneficial to you and your family.
I would love to see some pictures. It all sounds wonderful. I’ve got a 48′ x 32′ garden area and even with the barrier plastic I have laid down, I spend a lot of time weeding and preparing.
Brewer – I really suggest you turn it into a raised bed area. I suggest 8 by 4 foot beds.
I do not use any barrier material, and have almost no weeds. One reason is that the beds being raised means few weed seeds blow into them, and you can pluck them out as they sprout, even if they do get in. Seriously, we really do not do ANY weeding.
If you put the beds 4 feet apart, each bed will be around 12 by 8, including space around. You can get around 16 beds into that space, each of just under 3 square yards. Or around 45 square yards total. You will grow more food than you can imagine. And it will take only around 30 hours a year to do it. You can also just make say longer beds of multiples of 8 feet to reduce loss to walk areas, but it is a bit less user friendly. If you are really dedicated to how you go about it, rotate the crops seasonally, plant using square foot charts and such, you can literally get a ton or more of food out of that space each year. If you just want food for the table, it is more than enough room.
Ours are something like this, but lots more space around them so we can get a small tractor through if needed (compost delivery, etc.). Need to at least get a wheelbarrow through. Also, build and fill one at a time, to keep from blockading yourself.
Thanks for the quick reply. Are those 2′ x 4’s you used to build them? I can’t believe how much wood has gone up since Covid-1984.
Also, why does a raised bed produce more food than the same amount of space/planting, on the ground?
Llpoh is on target here, I container garden along with raised beds. Since I live in cattle country I have access to the large plastic containers used for cattle feed and protein. You can make raised beds from anything at hand including palletes, old tin, lumber scrap and tires. Tires are great for growing potatoes. You can also use hay bales. Hell, use your imagination.
I was in the grocery awhile back and stumbled across some damaged roasting pans on sale for like a dollar each. Clerk asked me what I was going to do with them all, my response: ‘Honey, I’m from the south and down here anything that holds dirt is a planter.”
We are in the South and my mother can grow more in a 5 gallon bucket than a lot of people can grow in a 1/4 acre plot.. Also, she can “root” a broom handle if given the right amount of soil and composted manure.
I was going to ask him EXACTLY the same thing.
But, I didn’t want to bother him .. so I looked it up. Found my answer here below, and lots of other interesting articles.
https://www.growveg.com/
Here’s another site;
“Why Use Raised Garden Beds?
Raised beds provide you control over the health of the soil in which you are growing your plants. A raised garden bed is simply mounded soil or a contained bed of soil above the surrounding grade. The goal is to create a deep, wide growing area that encourages plant roots to grow down and outward.
Raised beds can put plants at eye level for better observation of pest issues. When the bed is contained in a structure, you are better able to really get in there and work your bed without impacting the overall shape.
I also prefer not having to bend over to maintain the beds. Just that little bit of added convenience makes it easier to work in the garden, even on those days where I might be tempted to just kick back with a cold beverage. Believe me; I have those days too.”
Lot’s more here below, including plans to get started.
Thanks Stuck – good info!
Llpoh
Another good source of info:
https://www.gardeningaustin.com/blog/are-raised-bed-gardens-for-you
Thanks for linking these sites, Stucky. Mucho appreciated! (Plus, i need some diversions to all the bullcrap going on right now).
Stucky, as an aside, there’s a good election map in this article that shows you where the blue and red parts are in each state. It may help in your hunt for a house in the right area.
https://ussanews.com/News1/2020/11/16/can-trump-win-in-the-house/
Mine are 2*10s. Spacing, no weeds, better soil, etc. Are why they are so productive. They are known to be about 3 times more so than what is ground planted, and even more if you know what you are doing, which more or less describes me. Less, I mean.
I have major weed issues: Bermuda grass. It’s terrible. However, I will say this about it: When you cardboard that shit en masse, or have the tree services dump 20 yds. of mulch on it, the amount of nitrogen it adds to the soil is AMAZING. Like, unparalleled. I’ve never seen wood chips break down faster than when it’s piled atop Bermuda grass.
But the shit just. Won’t. Disappear. Not without shading it out once the fruit trees are big enough to do so.
Hence the benefit of raised beds. No grass up there!
Bermuda climbs, aggressively seeds, and rhizomes its way from down under.
Terrible! (But wunderbar as a soil amendment!)
The only 100% solution I’ve found is shade. Everything else is about 80% with weekly maintenance.
AOC – I understand Bermuda. But I do not know if it can climb up my beds which are 2 .5 feet high. If it could I would surround the beds in crushed rock (mostly done already).
But I may underestimate its tenacity.
The only thing worse for me was kudzu in Alabama. But you’re a world traveler and may have seen worse.
I just know it keeps me occupied being organic, at least until the entire orchard is mature. I just can’t bring myself to take the easy way out with chemicals. My wife is a cancer survivor so no bueno.
I am not an entire stickler for organic, but hardly use any chemicals anywhere. That said I am more than happy to go nuclear on things like unwanted Bermuda with glyphosate. I do keep food chem free though
LOL, I almost gave in. Gotta watch out for the wife though. And if truth be told, when it rots en masse it turns the top 1″ black. Never seen anything like it.
Anyone dealing with Kudzu, buy a pig. They will dig up and eat the roots and kill it.
Vic- I did not know that. We don’t have it here in KY but my relatives in GA and TN surely do.
Many states or cities try to control Kudzu with goats. But goats only eat the foliage and it just grows back, which is a stupid plan (except for those that own the goats). As I said, pigs will dig up those roots and eat them, along with any snakes hiding under the foliage, and they will eventually kill the Kudzu. The roots are the life blood of Kudzu.
Know what they call pigs that try to eat our brown snakes? Dead pigs. Horses, cows, pigs, dogs, humans – brown snakes kill them all.i hates them.
Wow. That’s awful. May have to invest in mechanical pigs. 🙂
BL, also remind your relatives that Kudzu is edible so it’s kind of a shame to eliminate it. The Flowers, leaves, and small twigs can all be eaten. The flowers make great jelly. And the roots are highly prized in Japan. Look it up.
It might be better to eat it rather than eliminate it. Plus, it’s a perennial and needs no maintenance.
Vic- Again, I did not know that! Southerners mostly consider that plant a plague. Who knew it is edible.
You are a wealth of knowledge Vic and yes, I will look into it.
Here’s a list of articles under “Kudzu Edible” on a DuckDuckGo search:
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffnt&q=kudzu+edible&atb=v116-1&ia=web
i built many out of 2×10 that are reaching around 5 years old. they are beginning to rot/biodegrade. any thoughts on what to use next? worried about pressure treated cause of chemicals. have thought of lining with high mil plastic but not sure that would make much diff since i am sure to pierce it eventually
Sepp Holzer uses stones. Sounds crazy, but it’s a great insulator in the winter.
Billy Bob – I used pressure treated pine, but the food grade stuff. No arsenic, and seems to be working well. Otherwise, perhaps Cyprus if it can be found in board form. I have only seen it as posts. It is nearly indestructible.
One of my fruit tree mounds before I planted the entire tree guild. I have somewhere around 125 of them, each about 8′ x 8′ x 2.5′. (They keep growing the more the Bermuda creeps. Half of them are probably 9′ x 9′ now.)
About 3 total rows out of 10 have 10′ x 12′ x 1.5′ of mulch between each tree. So even more growing area. The only cost for the mulch is max $40/20 yds. and the time it takes for me to use the tractor to dump it.
I would also say to those who live in city/tight suburbs,look inot vertical hydro planting,may not completely feed you but a step in the right direction,the smalls add up!
Here is a picture of mine from a few years ago. I’m working on it now that I took some time off from work.
Nice,in that one shot feel can almost reach out and pick your tomato,but,that would be stealing!
If you were my neighbor I will always share as you can see, plentiful production.
Very nice!
Thanks, I do raised beds also. But more focus on Hydroponics now as it uses a lot less water and the growth rate is fantastic and I use zero pesticides with the hydroponics.
Here’s a backyard hodgepodge picture, but it’s my hodgepodge.
Great to have room to work around the beds! Looks productive. Fortunately have lots of water – we have somewhere around 10 million gallons of water in our dams, and the big dam has never in living memory been know to go dry – so in over seventy years, in the worst of droughts, it has never gone dry, per local lore. Just the water we catch off our roof would support the vegetables so long as we didn’t water the lawn – and we do not get a lot of rain.
One thing though – we would NEVER have things up on blocks like you show. Never fucking never never never oh noes never. We have eastern brown snakes around here. They are the second most poisonous land snake on earth, and account for half the snakebite deaths in Oz. I hates them. They are like rattlesnakes, but no rattle, and orders of magnitude more poisonous. Wish Noah had forgotten them.
Damn man. The one thing about my snakes is they love hugelkultur and the rotten logs and they love vole and mouse snacks. But the worst we have around here are copperheads.
Rattlesnakes here, lots of them. I’m like Llpoh, nothing is left around for them to hide near or under. I use a hoe to push around the tomatoes and such before I reach inside the containers and I space the containers so that I can see around them. Bummer because I love beautifully landscaped yards.
If there’s one thing I hate, it’s a snake.
My father farmed all of his life, even if it was a backyard garden when he moved off the farm. But when in the country, he insisted on having at least one pig to take care of the snakes.
Mygirl – good thinking.We are the same. And we use gloves reaching into where we cannot see. The raised beds make it a bit harder for them to get into, or so we tell ourselves.
That is a nice set-up SS; could you provide close up pics of the upper left and the right photos? I am interested in better understanding your micro-irrigation system.
Q: how does one pay property taxes if they withhold their labor?
Thanks for sharing. Liberty Garden
Beats me, still need some cash.
Move to Middle TN, although rural prices are going through the roof. But in any event, it’s quite reasonable to pay $1200 per annum for an older home on 10 acres within 30-45 minutes of Nashville.
Sounds very nice.
Liberating. I reconnected with my heritage and with Christ getting my hands dirty.
AoC,
I have read this twice.
Let me try that again…
I’m just below you in the NE Georgia mountains area. When you said copperheads, I knew you were not too far away.
Raised beds is the easiest gardening I’ve ever done! Very few, if any weeds. My girlfriend recently purchased a hydroponic vertical planting system with grow lights. She is growing food in her garage. Growing food is not only good for the body, it’s good for the soul.
PTY,also,the cool thing with the vertical hydro is can be put on wheels and rolled out of garage on sunny days,keep the bees busy and all!
Llpoh,
You must be gardening in Eden?
I’m not trying to be a dick but you make it sound like Mikey Bloomberg ” just drop in the seeds and up comes the corn”.
This the third year for me an wifey and let me tell ya gardening is back breaking work. Getting the soil ready. Planting. The dog digging up what you’ve just planted. The bugs an varmints- caterpillars, weevil, stink bugs, slugs, moles voles birds, squirrels, opposum, others…
The weather never cooperates, rain wouldn’t stop and besides drowning some plants we started getting fungal diseases. Oh yeah, the diseases, bacterial, viral and already mentioned fungal. Soil amendments and such- We’ve got 25 bags of different fertilizers, minerals, amendments, etc.
We have had some really good crops and some total disappointments like the 4ft raised beds made and filled with Hugel culture. In one year the roots of a not so nearby oak invaded the bed and we had to empty the friggin thing and put 2 layers of polyester cloth to line the bottom but the God dam roots were in the bed again in 1 year. We are new to it and the knowledge you need is enormous. It is daunting but we do enjoy it and it’s comforting knowing we can grow stuff. But having a realistic look at what you’re getting in to is essential.
I’m curious about other farminnn stories TBPers have to tell. HSF?
Steve – don’t know what to say. Thirty hours a year. Produce out the wazoo. And we are amateurs, kinda.
We have watched a ton of videos and are trying all sorts of different methods. Everybody swears their method is the best and they are diametrically opposed to another guy growing the same stuff. Tomatoes are a good one. Is the plant determinate or indeterminate? What to feed em’ and when, tubs, raised beds, trellis? We have in ground beds, raised beds, growing in 10 gallon tubs. Trellis types are numerous.
I won’t take up any more time yaking but here in N Florida there are challenges that I assume are everywhere.
All I can say Llpoh is you’ve got a green thumb or luck on your side.
Again, for everybody else… keep at it, learn and know if/when the SHTF you can eek out something to gnaw on.
Oh, I’m in the middle of an acorn flour experiment. The Indians were know to use acorns for meal across the US. Most don’t know you can eat them once you get rid of the bitter tannins. Oaks grow everywhere and are prodigious producers of acorns. Knowing the local flora might save your bacon one day!
Acorn Flour? I never heard of that before, I need to look into that. I’ve got somewhere around a thousand Oak trees on my property and tons of acorns.
Deer and goats love acorn…just saying. Careful that goats don’t overeat the acorns…. Cattle and acorns, not so much.,,
https://www.karengoatkeeper.com/2016/goats-love-eating-acorns/
Pigs and geese also thrive on acorns.
In the Extremadura region of Spain you will find some of the most amazing cured ham (‘jamon’) that comes from pigs fattened on them. I also came across a producer of ‘foie gras’ who, unlike the French, does not force feed the birds grain. He just lets them eat windfall acorns to their heart’s content.
In both cases, the animals free-range and feed themselves when the acorns start falling.
Da P
MyG and DaP- The back screened in porch at my doomstead is almost as high as the huge oak that lays directly behind. Long about dusk, 7-8 deer will come to the backyard to munch on acorns . We are so high up, we can observe and they don’t see us.
God leaves them a delish bedtime snack there just for the eattin’.
BL, that sounds lovely. Your place sounds grand, massive oaks and deer. I’m too far south in Texas for the great trees, I have mesquite and a stand of china berries which I’m not too fond of but they provide some shade. Hill Country is where the oaks are….they’re being cut out to make way for subdivisions…may all developers rot in hell.
Well, at least you have good smoking wood! Nice mesquite smoked streak – mmmmm.
I started the Back to Eden (BTE) method and it has worked well…until I got lax the last two years in getting more wood chips for the top layer. I had a garden several years ago during a hot summer drought when almost everyone I knew lost their gardens. 3-4″ down, under the wood chips top layer, there was still moisture in the ground. I think I watered one time that year.
These people have a YouTube channel. They started off with the “Back to Eden” method but they abandoned it and went to raised beds only. The luscious garden in this video is from 2019. But their gardens today are just as luscious.
Funny how things go. I’m about to do the same thing. Go to raised beds. I just wish lumber had not gotten so darn expensive.
I intended to add more raised gardens but, like you say, lumber is definitely going up in price. I’ll probably have to do it in segments rather than all at once.
Check out the cull carts from Lowe’s or Home depot, you can pick up lumber for pennies on the dollar. You’ll get some stuff you need and stuff you’ll find another use for down the long fourth turning road.
Thanks for the advice SS.
Find some old galv corrugated, and stake them with metal stakes. Drill holes ate the edges and wire them together and to the stakes. Costs very little, doesn’t look too bad, and will last a very long time.
Thanks, Llpoh. Instead of buying, I’m thinking of doing a wooden barrier with some small trees I need to cut down. Won’t cost anything except some hard work in chopping.
I’ll use at least four posts staked into the ground, two oppositite of each other, and then stack the remaining limbs between the two posts on each end to make a short wall. I’ll do that on all four sides.
VV,
Wood rots faster than you might imagine. We used oak in a Hugel culture raised bed and after 2 years the wood is mush and that’s oak.
We took 16 ft ” cattle grates” and made round containers that are 4 ft high and will last forever.
Another is plastic tubs. They are great because you can control the water level, keeps critters out, can be moved( into shelter if weather necessitates, fertilizer need is less, identifying pests is easier, etc. Use 10-15 gallon tubs for best results.
BTE works great once you’ve diligently invested in the foundation. It wasn’t easy for us in this heavy clay. The only way I can describe it is to say the soil was hungry for organic material. It just ate up whatever I added to it up until recently.
I feel like now was the first year (3 years into the “investment”) where it’s really paid dividends. I see the difference in the soil tilth and in its productivity. I’m guessing based on my results that I’d only need to dust the topsoil with mulch every 4 years going forward. Just guessing though.
I don’t need to water my blueberries, blackberries, or raspberries at all anymore. None. I’m hoping in one more year that the same will be true for some of the trees that are newer.
When I bought this 6.5 acre place near Helen, GA almost 7 years ago, I spent a lot of $$$ setting up my 48′ x 32′ BTE garden. I bordered it with railroad ties, then brought in enough compost (from a place in Toccoa) to have about 3-4″ deep in the whole area. (under that was a layer of newspapers and cardboard from our moving boxes). A neighbor works for the county and every time a tree went down near the roadway, his guys chipped it up and I got a delivery.
Anyway, a LOT Of labor and money setting it up. Had I kept the level of wood chips (3-4″) every year I think I would still be in good shape. The first 3 years I had little weeds and they came up easily. Not so much any longer.
I daresay BTE is 10 years’ worth of work in life’s morning to buy some liberty in life’s afternoon and evening. If we figure a temperate forest adds 1″ of topsoil every 100 years, on average, then consider how much it takes to speed that process up. And by magnitudes more than 1″.
But it ain’t easy until life’s evening for sure.
I have used a product called Root Blast which works wonders with the volume of fruits and vegetables you get even in shitty soil. I highly recommend it.
I have heavy clay soil where I live in S.C. which is why I went to raised gardens in the first place. It’s just a lot of hard work compared to the raised garden beds and I’m getting older every day.
My mother lives across town and she has extremely sandy soil. It seems in S.C. you either have an abundance of clay or sand, which all require amendments. Too much work for me.
Steve – re drowning plants, not sure that is possible in mine. Soil is light, and drainage out of the beds excellent.
I do not use anything but compost, dolomite, and a bit of organic manure based fertiliser, except on the citrus which need more fertiliser and some minerals. Compost is all you need in a raised bed, I am pretty sure, and dolomite to control the PH.
I think you are perhaps overthinking it. Get the raised beds up high say at least 2 feet, soil plus compost plus two handfuls of manure based fertiliser and a sprinkle of dolomite, and that is it. Really.
Dogs don’t get up there in my experience. Bugs, well we get those. But we do not worry about them. They do not seem to make much damage, usually, to healthy plants.
My biggest problem is getting the seeds to even sprout! Any advise?
Vakr- can’t say I have had that issue. If the temperature is right, ie correct season, and the soil is most, everything pops up. You can try sprouting inside in a window sill and transplanting. Somethings – ie peppers are notoriously slow to sprout. I sprout peppers inside in a grow container, and plant them at least couple months before last frost, as they can take three to four weeks to sprout.
I start all my plants inside with a grow lamp from seed only. With one four foot lamp you can start 196 plants. The rock wool cubes have a little hole for the seed and I have a little nutrient mix I use to keep them damp.
So those rockwool cubes work? I have some stored away for SHTF but was doubting myself…I was worried I started a hoarding obsession on useless junk.
Can also use little peat moss cubes, or just fine seedling soil. But that setup looks like a really good way.
AOC, heck yes they work, I bought a case of them a few years ago. You don’t need a grow lamp or seven like I have, LOL, you can use them outside also. Great job on the prep purchase.
Dang, that is awesome. I wonder if I could propagate my bayberry in those things.
Really good set up, SS. I have a series of heated planter punnets. I keep them heated, and JT them in a grow cabinet to sprout and grow. It gets a jump on things, so that at last frost I can get seedlings in for those things needing a longer season, or to effectively add seasons. Have thought about a greenhouse for growing say tomatoes in winter. But just a thought for now.
Llpoh, thanks for doing this thread. I love getting ideas from others around the globe.
AOC, more proof on the rock wool starter cubes.
That’s crazy! I may back up the truck for them. AND they’re a sterile medium, right?
1.5 inch cubes 98 per sheet are the ones I purchased. Don’t know if they’re medium, I’ve started every seed in them.
Llpoh, have you learned how to get 50 tomatoe plants from one tomatoe plant yet?
It’s the sexiest thing in the world IMHO.
Vegetable Porn…….
No, haven’t heard of that. That said, I leave a bunch of tomatoes in the beds I intend to use the following spring, and get more volunteers than I can shake a stick at. I their them, let them grow a bit, and then put them in place. Easiest thing ever! Only issue is I often have no idea what variety they are until they start to bear fruit. I kinda like the surprise of it though!
All Tomatoe plants have suckers on them, they are the ones that grow out of the “Y” on the branch, they are there to protect the plant from insects and whatnot. They look like budding flowers and when you see them, embrace them, let them grow, love them as they are your friends.
Once they get about 2 to 3 inches long, gently pluck (pinch) them with your pointer finger and thumb and put them in a rain water filled bottle and they will sprout incredible roots in about 10 days or less.
You can now plant them anywhere, I’ve done this many times over the years.
Trying to grow food really is a humbling experience if you don’t live in Eden! We have a small plot on the edge of a forest in East Texas. Plenty of sunshine and rainfall, so it should be a snap, right? Ha! Pests below ground, on the ground, and flying in from above ground. Varietals that are supposed to work in our area fail, while others surprise us and thrive. Live and learn. Share tips with neighbors. My country neighbors have a big beautiful garden, but they can’t grow bell peppers for anything. I’m struggling on the gardening learning curve, but had great success with bell peppers. We traded food, and it was cool. Let’s keep at it!
Our area is very similar to East Texas. Don’t overthink it. Get the beds up, good soil, top with compost, dolomite, a bit of manure each year, dig in, plant, harvest.
Different setups will face different issues, but I get it. While we are fortunate to have about a 1/2 acre space next to the house, we used raised beds instead of inground which significantly reduces the efforts required. No weeding, and if I run irrigation we eliminate watering time, leaving more time for Mrs. Arrow to manicure tomato plants, etc.
As you know there are many issues such as those you have faced which cloud the raised bed euphoria. We’ve used “reclaimed” materials for make the beds. This results in more maintenance; repairing, replacing, etc.; the “right thing to do” perhaps, but it requires more labor than I prefer so as the beds “return to source” so to speak, I’m building new.
Llpoh, those are some nice beds but as you know the soil will “eat” the lumber eventually. Did you line them with anything?
@Arrow –
Been gardening over fifty years one way or another. Set up my first raised beds back in 2006 and haven’t looked back. For just the two of us, I have about 30% of what Llpoh has set up. There are always flushes of some stuff to share and we rarely have a widespread failure that leaves us short on veg.
(Thanks also, @Llpoh for the “heads up” on Egyptian Walking Onions a few years back. Those are an amazing find!)
Yes, the setup “eats” lumber. My first beds were “2 by” boards of mixed fir and larch, no lining. I had to replace them in 2018. I went with Cedar this time so it is likely these new beds will outlive me.
I should note that I live in a fairly dry climate so lining may have some value for people in places with higher humidity year-round. If you choose to line, focus on the bottom edges of bed frames and inside surfaces only.
I have seen people do complete “wraps” of the boards and even “4 by” material. Contrary to what they expected, they actually set up conditions for faster rotting of the lumber.
Da P
Our timber is food grade treated – ie no arsenic. So far looks like the day we got it.
Starve the beast but feed the body when things get rough.
Llpoh,
It would be great if you added info on your typical spacing of the plantings. Do you follow standard spacings, or plant more tightly?
I did some raised beds this past summer… some 2’x4′ and some 4′ x 8′, although not raised high… just 6-8″. I used some left over azek decking to frame the smaller beds and used some dead cedar trees off the woodlot (sawed in half) for the larger beds. Put lots of well composted manure in them. Stuff grew excellent. Ground hog came in and wiped out the broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage early on. They never really recovered. Maddening as hell. Fenced in everything with chicken wire after that. Landscaping cloth is useless if exposed to sun. Grass will grow right up through it. I put down asphalt roofing shingles around the beds to kill off the grass. (will use roll roofing when I add more beds) and will be putting 6-8″ of wood chips down to keep the grass from growing. Fortunately, a 12″ wood chipper came as part of the package when I bought some haying equipment last fall.
Don’t anyone kid themselves, though. There is money involved setting up and there is work. I still need to set up a watering system. Way too much time involved watering. I have a shallow well, so I can’t water from the well. Bought a 2″ water pump from harbor freight and was trucking 6 55gal drums of water each day for about 2 months when we went through a drought this summer. The pump is awesome. Fills a drum in under about a minute. I’m working on converting an old military fuel trailer to truck water with. Disassembled it all, sandblasted all the frame, new tires. Just have to sandblast the tank (around 600gal) now and get a 12V-24V transformer for the electric brakes. Then hopefully, I can set up a drip irrigation system.
Next project will be a large greenhouse.
We plant tighter than recommended. They still go crazy. It is the beds and good soil.
I think one of the articles I wrote outlined what I used for irrigation. 3/4″ trunk lines, 1/4″ drip emitters (6″ spacing) for trees, 1/4″ drip emitters (9″ spacing) for the tree guild.
It’s a lot cheaper to order the materials and do it yourself. By far. The prices that landscapers were charging to do it was insane. And I knew I’d want to do it “my” way. No digging involved, I just dumped 6″ of mulch over the trunk lines in row.
I use very similar set up. I do use sprayers on some things, like lettuces and such, but drippers on thinks that are large individual plants like pumpkin. I use weepers on my beans where there are whole rows of plants fairly evenly and closely spaced.
A good book on raised beds is Mel Bartholomew’s “All New Square Foot Gardening.” He not only details how to plant and spacing but he recommends soil mixtures.
Yes, I have that book – it’s a very good resource., especially for those new to / considering a raised bed garden. I’m convinced that Mel’s Mix (his soil recipe) is a key step towards having a good bounty.
Good stuff
Good stuff Lloph! I need to start planning and building for spring here in Colorado.
IMHO, using square feet instead of square yards for yields would be simpler, especially when building beds by the foot. I have 16 raised beds (2’x4′, 2’x6′, 4’x4′, 4’x8′) as many as my sloping terrain allows. Also have 20-15 gal and 20- 7 gal grow bags. All drip irrigated. Very low maintenance and more yield than 2 people can handle ………….. neighbors are happy. Plenty left over to put by.
Thanks Llpoh,
We grow and raise and shoot the majority of our food, long learning curve for me.
A word of advice for any one starting out:
Buy seeds now. Not next month, NOW.
Buy any tools now.
Buy all canning supplies NOW.
Jim,it seems you are almost saying goods ect. reasonably priced and available at the moment,keep shopping,check me if I am wrong!
There was a reason that during the quarantines some governors declared seeds and gardening stuff ‘nonessential’. Guess why.
I second this.
Seed Savers Exchange. Pay the membership fee and do it now.
I have used these guys every year for a long time :
https://www.highmowingseeds.com/
I bought my last batch of seeds from them.
Very nice, thanks very much for this new link!
I gather from the ‘citrus’ remark that Llpoh likely resides in FL south of I-4. Or down near Brownsville TX.
If you have a LONG growing season, it tends to help.
The other possibly is that Llpoh lives in western Nebraska.
Just google “Nebraska citrus” if you are the curious type. (web and videos)
Wife & I grow a lot, but not with the results described by Llpoh. I’ve been trying to fine tune the things I can grow with good success, and we seem to be getting better every year. Next big project will be a drip irrigation system. It will save time and be much more consistent than relying on the weather or garden hose. I’m hoping that does the trick. Best thing I added to my garden this year was rabbit shit. It’s atomic plant food. Next season will also feature the addition of composted straw & quail shit. The pile is getting bigger every week.
Um no, Australia
Pedro – you are 10,000 miles off. Australia. And our growing season is not especially long where we are – not Queensland. It frosts some in the winter here. But we have some citrus on the trees almost year around.
In MN we had a guy named Jon Grunseth who ran for governor in 1990. It came out that nine years earlier he had basically tried to molest some teenage girls – friends of his daughters. At the time, he’d been young and foolish. He was 36. That killed his political ambitions and embarrassed him to death. So he moved to Tasmania in 1997 and now owns a cherry farm. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Grunseth#Sex_scandal
I’m not saying everyone who moves to Australia and takes up farming is a child molester. Some, I assume, are good people.
Iska – you may think such a comment is funny. Not me. It may have been made in jest, but child molestation is never funny, and the hint of accusation is quite enough to get my attention. I cannot remember anything major ever occurring between us, but gotta say I am really not amused, and am quite befuddled, by what you have posted there.
Llpoh lives in Australia….
Llpoh-This is a real service to the TBP community. Some of my family members have some kind of special dirt brought in for their raised beds. Not sure what it is called but it has something to do with mushroom farming.
Have you ever seen the youtubes of the guy who raises tons of potatoes in those big drywall mud buckets you can buy at Lowes or Home Depot?
Agreed, BL. All the suggestions and ideas for self-sufficiency and partaking in natures abundance…are empowering.
SeeBee- I learn something everyday around here. I am too lazy to put most of the knowledge to task, until I have to. I positioned myself near Amish farms.
BL – most likely that is spent mushroom compost – they grow mushrooms on it. When used up for that purpose it is then on sold for gardening use. I use it for compost. Works great.
Hi all – want to comment on those saying I have a green thumb, live in Eden, wonderful weather, etc. Cannot say that any of those things are true, and I have not exaggerated the production of this garden. So, here is a more detailed description of what we did/do.
1) made the beds out of food grade 2”*10” treated pine. It seems pretty much indestructible. Note: nailed them together with a nail gun for speed, then screwed them with big screws. You MUST screw them together. Made a few out of corrugated galv sheets supported by star pickets – they are indestructible, too. They can be bought ready made as well.
2) filled them with good topsoil, topped with about 4” of mushroom compost (someone mentioned that below), dug in, and set up watering system.
3) each year, twice a year in beds for tomatoes and potatoes) we re-top and dig in about 2-3 inches of compost, toss in some dolomite, and about 2 handfuls of organic fertiliser (ie made from chicken manure or similar) per square yard. We dig that in with a small shovel, which is dead easy to do and not at all backbreaking, and rake level, and plant. What weeding we do is done as we walk past, pulling out a few sprouts here and there. Nothing that requires a hoe.
That is it. Truly. And everything grows like it is turbocharged. The soil is light and fluffy and rich, and gets more so season after season. Everything grows – not a single failure. We lost a couple broccoli/cauliflower plants to white moths last season but that was it. We harvested some cauliflower heads as almost as big as basketballs, and the broccoli was much the same. We had one bed of spinach going, and couldn’t eat or give it away fast enough.
May I again advise on getting walking onions and potato onions. They are a home gardener’s best friend. Easy, easy to grow, and a gift that keeps on giving, season after season, year after year.
Llpoh- In the spirit of best TBP behavior, I would like to smokem’ peace pipe and be brothers, Stucky too, even though he stabbed me in the back after declaring a peace.
No problemo- that is what we do here, you know that. Family fights. Families make up. We just need to find someone to gang up on to cement the making up! We have known each other too long to hold grudges.
Re Stuck – you know he is sneaky. Can’t turn your back on him. But he is unlikely to hold a grudge, but I do not know what it was all about.
The one thing I see happening a bit is talk about families. That has to be a no go zone for everyone. Those type grudges are the hard ones to shake.
Peace! Thanks!
Thanks for your post – often you read a commenter ask “what can I do?” Well, you provided one of the best answers; if you can’t be somewhat self-sufficient in food, then you are toast when SHTF.
I’m jealous of your caulif. & broccoli heads – I have trouble with that (esp. this year). I did some internet research and found a lady on youtube that said it is imperative that the plants not be exposed to temps lower than 45 deg. F if you want good sized heads. I knew that broccoli is a cold weather crop, so started them early indoors, and then transplanted fairly early – but didn’t know that too cold of a temp will negatively affect head size. Eager to try again next year with this new knowledge…
Thanks for this, @Llpoh, a really well-done write-up!
Since first trying out raised beds many years back, I have been sold. Especially appreciated is how it extends my growing season on both the front and back ends. I am about 30% of your planting space but there are only two of us. Neighbors take the occasional excess eagerly and I have already converted one of them to start their own ‘food factory’.
I just got done root-cellaring my carrot and beet crop and then planted/mulched-in my garlic. I’ll be digging Horseradish for the root cellar in about a week. So, being in Oz, you might just be a few weeks away from harvesting your first lettuces and maybe snap peas, I’d guess?
BTW, I don’t know how old your beds are but I found maintenance went up marginally about year six as some pests accumulated. (And, yes, I do “rotate” crops on an exacting schedule.) Fallowing beds and turning them periodically in late Fall (about now here in Central WA state) allows the birds to come in and peck over for grubs, stray seed. No bird seed out until mid-December, I want those feathered buggers to do some work for me!
Do you have all your plantings in raised beds?
Our raspberries, sweet cherries, apples, and almond are still bedded ‘in-ground’. I will likely convert the raspberries to raised beds in the next couple of years but the trees need more space for effective moisture capture and protection from high temperature spikes. The blueberries are in a newly built ‘hugelkultur bed’ per @Articles of Confederation instruction.
Strawberries have given me fits but I tell myself that 2021 is the year that I get that figured out. Currently working in a raised bed tower configuration which will get re-sited and bulked up with wood chips in the next month.
In the meantime, as winter’s dark sets in, I will be exploring indoor gardening of ‘micro-greens’. I have found a low-tech, “no-lights” approach and just got done picking up supplies for the project. For the general TBP crowd,the guide that I am using is:
Year Round Indoor Salad Gardening by Peter Burke
I should have an opinion by mid-January.
In closing, I note that my butcher (a cantankerous 91 y/o Swiss transplant) is completely aghast at these activities.
“Perfessor, why do you need to eat vegetables? The animals already did that for you!”
Cheers!
Da P
Prof – we harvest lettuce year around in our beds. No problem. We set a new row or two every couple to few weeks. We get frost maybe 20 days a year, but doesn’t seem to bother the lettuce, spinach, cauliflower, broccoli or chard.
Fruit trees save for citrus are in ground – about 20 of them – apples, pears, cherries, plums, apricots, etc. Our strawberries are going crazy – never had any luck with them before.
Oh great, @Llpoh…I am now officially envious. You are blessed with that growing season!
Thanks for the check-in on siting of fruit trees and strawberries. I will endeavor to get better on the latter.
Da P
The fruit trees are ok, but not entirely thriving. The soil is poor, even though we located them in a valley.
Horseradish is truly a miracle plant for my fruit trees. I don’t know the mechanics nor science behind it, but it really does damn near eliminate powdery mildew and cut down on the scab.
I read somewhere that one only needs 1-2 plants to last a family’s lifetime. Oops! I have 1 on each fruit tree mound. I swear by the stuff. And the leaves are so prolific that it’s no worse for the wear when it attracts some insects away from the trees.
AOC- I really like horseradish and it’s good fer ya. I hope when all the older folks are gone, there will be someone to carry on this knowledge.
There will be. We’re getting close to “back to the basics” time and at that point it’s a matter of spreading the word to as many people as possible.
Thanks for the horseradish advice, AOC. I usually plant garlic around plants to help keep pests down, but this may be even better.
I do both, along with chives. Filaree Garlic Farm is great.
Horseradish is also awesome because it is a strong plant that shades out Bermuda. Like True Comfrey, once you have it, you have it. That’s a good thing for my trees.
VV, I buy my horseradish roots from Nourse Farms. Never had a problem with their roots.
All, here’s a link with some basic gardening info on their site for the amateurs.
https://www.noursefarms.com/news/post/start-your-own-food-producing-garden/
Thanks, AOC
O/T Does anyone have a recommendation on communication devices…camping walkies or Two Ways?
UHF handsets are reasonably priced and good for two to five miles. Get highest watt you can afford – up to five.
Thank you, Llpoh. Researching now.
CB’s are good and you can get hand held units. I have one fixed unit in car and two hand helds.
Truckers see a lot of stuff on the road, great source of information.
I use old tires. Take a sawzall to the side walls, line em up, fill em up and off you go!
Some people use tires for potatoes. I recommend against that technique, personally. Potatoes do not do well when soil temps get up. They like cool soil, and black tires heat the soil. Just my opinion. Maybe paint them white so as to minimize that heating up, if used for that purpose. Peppers on the other hand love heat.
Fantastic advice and the results are quite accurate in my experience. I do modified hugelkultur for various and sundry reasons, not the least of which are less bending over and increased surface area on which to grow. I personally had high startup costs in soil and trees and minimal costs in mulch. So YMMV. Then again, there isn’t worse soil than middle TN clay that I’ve ever encountered, so it was a given that it’d take some effort.
The reason I wholeheartedly support Llpoh’s advice on getting started YESTERDAY is because you will make mistakes. A lot of them. The more mistakes you get out of the way now, while you can recover, the better off you’ll be.
AOC – will see your TN clay and raise you rocky Oz hill soil. It was what got us started on raised beds – no hope of growing anything in that crap.
Here’s a good article on making raised beds from different materials.
Very timely for me Llpoh, just moved from NH to VA. Need to build new raised beds. And you are right, raised beds make the best gardens. NO TILLING, tilling kills all the beneficial organisms. So I ask for some help here. What is the best material to use for the beds? I have used pine 2X6’s doubled up, but they rot in 3 or so years. Have tried the same but painted them and that only lasts a year longer. Anyone got some innovative ideas ?
Well, I have some galv iron ones showing zero signs of rust etc after around 4 years I think. And the food grade treated pine 2 by 10 is showing no signs of any rot, but that may or may not be anything but luck, as I have only this one experience to go by.
With the gal corrugated I used 2 pieces 8 feet by around 2’6” by memory, with 4 long foot end pieces. They can be had from scrap many times. I drove star pickets in at the ends and halfway on the long sides to attach them to. I wired the panels together with heavy gauge galv wire, and wired also to the posts.
If you want them even more sturdy, someone I know uses all thread (long threaded rod) of about 1/2 diameter, 4’2” long approximately, threaded through the long side 1/3rd from each end about halfway up from the bottom, with large washer between the nut and the galv. If you haven’t seen all thread before, think of it as a very long bolt that takes a nut at each end – a 4’ long bolt. This makes sure that the sides of the galv panels cannot bow out. Clear as mud, right? All thread isn’t especially expensive, and if you get galv all thread it should last a very long time.
You could also thread galv wire through the long sides in a couple/few spots, side to side, and tie tight to help stop the bowing. Mine bow a bit, but not enough I worry about it.
In my new place, I started Year 1 with 2x8s (which are really about 1.5×6) to make three 4’x8′ beds. I also had a 2.5’x11′ bed (placed against a wood fence) made with 2x12s (1.5×10.5) because I wanted a deeper bed for root crops. These were all untreated (I later learned that now-a-days treated wood is safe because they use copper to pressure treat the lumber), and only one board-width in height – not stacked like LLPOH’s high-level beds (which are very nice looking, by the way).
So my beds are low to the ground, but require less soil to fill – which was costly and a lot of work, since I made my own Mel’s Mix (1/3 compost, 1/3 peat, 1/3 vermiculite) from scratch. One thing I learned: 2x10s would be better than 2x8s because a bit more depth is needed (although most everything I grew was fine, though staking was required for things like broccoli, peppers, etc). 2x10s are a also bit easier to handle than the 2x12s. I did 2x12s again in Year 2 (treated lumber), but because I wanted extra depth for a rapsberry bed – I think almost all vegetable crops can be done well with 2x10s pretty well, although some things will still require staking (tomatoes, obviously).
I used some roofing tar to coat some boards I used for a planter and it worked pretty well for a few years, but eventually, the boards rotted.
If you plan on being there a long time, you might consider cinder blocks. A 2x8x8′ pressure treated board is $14. 6 cinder blocks are around $7 for 8 linear feet. Throw in some rebar and concrete and you can have a 4’X8’X8″ frame for $25 and it will last forever.
That comes out to 9,000 square feet of raised beds, is that right or did I misunderstand your description? That’s massive.
Need some pics to flesh it out.
Good for you getting it up and running, you need to write another one on how you amend your soil without livestock in an arid region.
This is the kind of thing we should be focusing on right now.
900 sq feet. 100 yrds by 9 feet per.
I use compost, mostly called mushroom compost that is used for growing mushrooms, about 3 inches a year, dug in. Plus some dolomite to adjust ph, and some manure based fertiliser. I wish I could say it is more complex than that, but that is it.
“mushroom substrate is a mix of wheat straw, gypsum, and horse or chicken manure. Other ingredients can be used, but these are some of the most common.”
Got it.
You should add some livestock to the mix as well if you have any inclination.
Again, I’m really proud of what you were able to do in a new environment with new skills. Please keep us posted about what works for you there and what the drawbacks are, far more interesting than politics.
Thanks. Will do. Re livestock, we haven’t gone that way, as yet, because we were hoping to travel. But it is back in discussion.
llpoh,
this is a good article–
4 those of you who don’t have much time or $ to build raised beds & if you have space where looks don’t matter,there are 2 alternatives–
you can stack several tires & fill them w/dirt–this works especially well w/potatoes–
you can also use old refrigerators as planters–just remove the compressor & drill holes in the bottom(actually the back of the fridge,which will be the bottom once it is laid upon the ground),lay it down & fill it w/your choice of soil-
I wonder if the Soviets tried this. Considering the USSR lasted for 75 years and the Soviets could get a fridge to last 30, they could’ve made use of a fridge the entire time they were enslaved. 🙂
very possible,aoc–
the soviets “privatized” small % s of their farms & the private parts produced almost as much as the larger parts of the farms–
https://thumbnails-photos.amazon.com/v1/thumbnail/3r2m7qJiTSSwi561_CIu1g?viewBox=1680%2C1260&ownerId=A3O9CQMGKCYGUR
https://thumbnails-photos.amazon.com/v1/thumbnail/MgQNZuftTDqhUWs09iqjYQ?viewBox=1680%2C1260&ownerId=A3O9CQMGKCYGUR
https://thumbnails-photos.amazon.com/v1/thumbnail/MgQNZuftTDqhUWs09iqjYQ?viewBox=1680%2C1260&ownerId=A3O9CQMGKCYGUR
https://thumbnails-photos.amazon.com/v1/thumbnail/pyO6gJW3SAOAIU3HNcCc1w?viewBox=1680%2C1260&ownerId=A3O9CQMGKCYGUR
https://thumbnails-photos.amazon.com/v1/thumbnail/iO9vJdOQRZOXDTKtiiR8zA?viewBox=1680%2C1260&ownerId=A3O9CQMGKCYGUR
Sorry about the double post, obviously I don’t know what I am doing.
I couldn’t see anything on those sites. Sorry.
I can’t figure out how to post pictures . Sorry. They are photos of my raised beds in my greenhouse .
Glad you are in the game. Thanks.
https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared/8TuE2i4CSVq_KX97jSxM9w.C3cK-4EIGvE1aHTdNGi3HG
Nice. Real Nice.
Now that is what I’m talking about! Very nice!
https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared/adK6Xr5ATZi3fJjnrZRJLA.mzGGQOfaCPg4peBbi57Lnp
https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared/qYLWom1OQgCn8Wnn4imSvg.uCeEeVqalba69TSbHv8IgG
Thanks. Got some grow bags and hydroponics going on too.
Nicely done on the hydroponics, beautiful setup.
https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared/gyg9nqLNRWq6IYUzgmwWGA.uxwrycLv81a1Yhs87Tbpaf
Excellent Ralph/Anon- Reminds me of a Amish guy’s set up near my doomstead house.
I recently moved to a place with about a quarter acre tillable. What do you do about deer ‘harvesting’ the crop? I know shoot them for venison is an option, but is there a deterrent? I heard one guy say he needed a ten foot fence.
Personally, I recommend these:
Not only will deer not come around, neither will assorted miscreants. Any deer or miscreants stupid enough to do so will likely end up as boerboel poop. And God have mercy on anyone messing with kids in their presence, or their family. See how happy and safe that child looks? For good reason. 150 to 200 pounds of fuck off and leave my family alone in each one.
We came verrrrry close to getting a Boerboel but at the end of the day, my wife was worried about the kids. We settled on a Karakachan.
Karakachans are herding dogs. Boerboels are the only breed ever bred for the sole purpose of protecting the family. I wouldn’t trust any big dog alone with a small child. That said, the boerboel was left alone with the children toward them while the adults were out in the farm.
As with any breed, gotta be careful of disreputable breeders that mix in things they shouldn’t.
A buddy of mine (and longtime TBP lurker) has a little side company that sells grow bags in all kinds of sizes. They would be perfect for anyone who wants to do this kind of thing, and doesn’t have the room or maybe the contiguous space to build the raised beds. They last a long long time and are quite inexpensive. http://www.betterroots.com/
A huge range of sizes. Everyone can grow something. Those would b3 a great way to get started.
I’ve bookmarked that site, starfcker. Thank you.
He likes to do things on enormous scale, but he is a daily reader here for years, and he has a soft spot for anybody who likes horticulture. Contact info is on the site
Check out #2 on this list. Llpoh has his hands full. I’d be wearing more than gloves sticking my hands in any pots or CMU blocks Down Under!
Yup, everything in Oz can kill you: spiders, snakes, Roos, fish, sea shells, birds, crocs, etc. We have 8 of the top 24 most venomous land snakes, including 4 of the top 5. These bastards do not play around.
I loved snakes until I saw the potency of some of those. Even the Timber rattler is no shit. I’ve sort of changed my mind. If I see a rattler it’s as good as dead.
Copperheads are still OK, and if my wife had known I played Free Willy with a couple of them, she’d have my ass.
Have you ever personally seen an Eastern brown snake?
Have I seen them? Hell yes, I see them every year. I kill one or so a year. We have a lot more of the red bellied blacks (they are on the list, too) which are less aggressive and not sure anyone ever died from their bite.
I keep shovels around everywhere for bonging the bastards. The ones I have whacked are about 4 footers. Not sure I would try a big one of 6’. Bastards are fast and aggressive.
Fortunately, they are active almost exclusively in the daytime. It would suck to have them scrabbling around everywhere in the dark.
Yeah, I’d get some plate mail on my hands dealing with those fuckers. They’re nasty.
Llpoh, AoC,
I had a Cotton Mouth infested pond when I first bought my place in 2012. I used the Bond Arms Snake Slayer with the 4/10 barrel and killed four adults and one juvie. Haven’t seen one since (I keep the brush buzz cut now). A year later I also shredded a Copper Head, two years later a second Copper Head.
I heard Bond Arms is also one of the top anti carjacking handguns in the world.
Some great holsters. I love this gun.
Added to my Christmas list. Thanks.
Cool gun.