Hi,
This is my first season on beds; I have 16 1.2*2.6m beds with a .8m border all around the outside. There is a lager path in an x intersecting the plot along with key hole access (the paths don’t divide the beds totally)
Comments I have so far:
• Making the beds are blooming hard work (though I was double digging mostly virgin soil)
• Plant in blocks of crops that are all to be harvested at the same time so that you can re use the space quickly
• Even though you are using raised beds its hard to not plant in rows
• Advice is to plant using the plant spacing advice on seed packets (not the row spacing) to space the rows.
• Using the plant spacing between rows I cannot use a very small onion hoe between rows
• They do dry out quickly, especially in the dry spell we had.
• You need allot of row markers for every row (I don’t bother)
• Set out the longest ends of the beds south so that you can reach up the rows
• You can still ridge potatoes if you want to.., I have also grown under poly to compare
• Shading can be a problem depending on the layout of your plot
• Weeding is easy…. I don’t think it is, though you can easily clear a whole bed and feel like you have accomplished some thing.
• Weeding is easy… maybe once the plants drown them out we will see.
• Using machinery is no longer practical… a small mantis may help but my merry tiller is overkill.
• Make the bed with stakes fixed then hammer them home, not hammer in the stakes them screw the boards to them.
• Use thick enough wood or frequent stakes along the length of the longer sections
• Do not think this is better for a bad back as you have to reach to get to the middle of the bed, with rows you can kneel right beside plants when thinning/planting.
• You don’t ever get muddy feet
• You always have muddy hands
• Planting closer and in blocks encourages pests to proliferate
• You can pick off the pests more easily
• Make sure the paths are level with the bottom of the boards… if you do not the soil at the edges dries very quickly and the drains out like a sand timer.
• Make all the beds exactly the same size so that any cloches, nets, covers etc you make fit all of them.
Sorry about the rant (I could probably keep going) hope this helps
Sam