[MyAchingBack]

Some of the more experienced plot holders on our site make ridges in their planting areas and grow their vegetables along these ridges. I知 guessing that this helps with drainage but is there much of an advantage to growing this way?

[grendel]

not sure really, when I rotovate my plot it leaves nice ridges about 12-18" apart, so I plant on the ridges figuring if I need to water I'll do it in the troughs.
Grendel

[MyAchingBack]

I believe they make the ridges using  a draw hoe and an Irish shovel. Does the crop i.e. onions, grow out of the ridges as they become more established? I知 wondering whether to try this method next year. It does look very professional.

[Goosegirl]

I'd ask these plot holders why they do it this way. Good for drainage if you are on the flat, so it is like doing a series of mini-raised beds; however, you would need to water between the ridges as that is where roots could become exposed. I didn't know how important watering raised beds was until I realised that the sides dry out a lot.

[Alastair-I]

On the flat near a river I need to raise the soil to assist drainage which may be the reason for the ridges.

An alternative to ridges or edged raised beds are lazy beds.  Dug out your paths  a few inches below the soil level and use this to raise the level of soil on the beds.  In heavy rain your paths will not as drainage ditches for surface water so you may need to lay a plank if they get muddy.  The main benefit on my plot is that this lifts the surface an additional few inches above the water table.  This year the water table rose so much in the wety spring that just a fork spit below the normal soil surface the soils was the consistency of a sloppy concrete mix.  The spuds where I didn't raise lazy beds largely rotted below the ground.

This autumn I'm adding the first three of four edged raised beds, and I'll add a few more every year.  The rest of the plot will be dug over winter and relaid to lazy beds in the spring.

[Trillium]

Ridge planting depends on your weather conditions. In the UK it seems to be best on top of the ridge due to the high rainfall you get and this keeps crops drier. Where I live, we get more drought conditions and planting in the ridge base is best to collect as much water as possible.

[fatcat1955]

Saw this type of growing in Turkey and wondered why they did it. Then saw the farmer turn on the water and the whole field was gradually flooded until the water was just below the top of the ridge. They did this every night.

[mumofstig]

On Zakynthos November and December brought torrential storms every year, so onions and garlic were planted on ridges to stop them drowning. In the spring the tomatoes, peppers, corn and cucumbers were planted in the valleys - which were flooded to water the crops after the residual ground water was used up.

as an aside I grew enormous swedes there, they loved the mild wet weather - you actually sank into the soil to go and cut one - they were as large as pumpkins 

[richie]

Some of the more experienced plot holders on our site make ridges in their planting areas and grow their vegetables along these ridges. I知 guessing that this helps with drainage but is there much of an advantage to growing this way?

i think this method is a medieval way of farming, "ridge and furrow" or "rig n fur"




edit to fix quote

[Salmo]

Farmers in the northern counties of England and Scotland always used to grow their swedes and turnips on the ridge.

[Growster...]

The individual beds we've formed this year have made work so much easier, and in fact each one is an individual mound or ridge in its own right.

Because there are quite a few sq. yd. of paths, the idea is to have these mowable, make a deep edge for a strimmer to deal with, and have a ridge along the 8' length of each bed.

They're possibly not the most economical use of the land, but they're definitely better for maintenance, and actually make much of the tiresome work more enjoyable!

One benefit of the troughs formed is that you can mulch them for water retention, and I guess that's what we found with the deep edges we're trying to form permanently.

[Goosegirl]

Some of the more experienced plot holders on our site make ridges in their planting areas and grow their vegetables along these ridges. I知 guessing that this helps with drainage but is there much of an advantage to growing this way?

i think this method is a medieval way of farming, "ridge and furrow" or "rig n fur"

edit to fix quote

Ridge and Furrow topography actually results from ploughing with non-reversible ploughs on the same strip of land each year during the Middle Ages (Wikipedia)

Citation added by Aunty:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ridge_and_furrow