[Zak the Rabbit]

Hi All,

My childhood home has a nice long garden where i always used to grow my veg as a kid, usually ending up feeding the whole street on a glut of lettuce, and my old mum would love to still grow herself a few veggies.

Trouble is, her arthritis, bad legs and carpal tunnel syndrome all conspire to make it quite impossible for her to bend to tend a normal plot, and i now live 30miles away, too far to help regularly.

However, being an engineer by trade im a practical sort of bloke, and my brother who lives closer is reasonably handy so long as someone else designs stuff for him. SO ive kind of thought up a raised bed system, but by raised i do mean Raised. What i have in mind is effectively a 4ft x 10ft crate full of soil (made probably from the ubiquitous pallets, which im becoming quite skilled at recycling, the trick is to batter the hell out of 'em with a ruber mallet), stood on some form of suitably sturdy legs so its at a height of about 3 1/2 - 4ft, maybe 4x4 timbers, maybe a neat breezeblock structure.

Trouble is, and this is where i need a bit of help, ive no idea how deep to make the thing. She will probably want to grow the usual suspects, carrots, lettuce, beetroot, but maybe a few spuds as well. Any advice you guys gan give on soil depths would be greatly appreciated. Also, if anyone has a rough idea of the weight of a square foot of soil, that would make it easy to design something that wont collapse under a crop of parsnips!

Im hoping to be able to build her one of these as a Christmas pressent. If it works and she finds it easy enough to work, then i will show my brother how there put together and instruct him to build her a few more.

Ive just realised as well, if i include some upright poles, she could cover the things with netting/mesh as needed.

so, your help and advice would be much appreciated,


Martin

[John]

A lot of the NVS growers have waist high deep beds, usually made with breeze blocks. I've not weighed a cubic foot of soil but remember wet soil is much heavier.  A cubic foot of water weighs just over 28KG

I'd try and ensure a soil depth of at least a foot - maybe 18"  but watch out for the weight.

[muntjac]

my thoughts exactly .why waste all that soil in the bottom of a box .use breeze blocks  as the suport and maybe look to use scaffolding planks as the base and box sides , cover the bottom with dpm .(damp proof membrane ) from a builders supplies  and i would look to have it on a little slant to allow draining to happen at one end maybe having a 1/2 inch gap tween the end wall and the base .18inch deep is more than deep enough i have seen this method used in childrens schools for the wheel chair users and it worked effectivly

[shaun]

we have built a few of these raised beds at schools and the like like karl says they were mainly for wheel chairs and the like,we used railway sleepers (with all the bitumen and grime removed with a jet wash),100mm x 100mm posts in each corner. and another way that we have used  is with concrete base panels and concrete slotted posts .a bit expensive both ways but they will be there a long time.

[supersprout]

Just to see how she gets on with a VERY raised bed, what about cheep n cheerful straw beds? I made a compost heap which will turn into an early spud bed next year, followed by melons, followed by carrots the following year - will top up with decayed compost each time.

nice and soft if she should fall against the sides?

[Zak the Rabbit]

Great stuff, thanks all,

i will go for 18inch depth then, and maybe a few extra posts to support against the weight.


Cheers



Martin