Ep. 220 From the ground up: How to create and care for raised bed gardens | #GoodGrowing - Good Growing

Episode Transcript
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Chris Enroth (00:04):
Welcome to the Good Growing Podcast. I am Chris
Enroth, horticulture educatorwith University of Illinois
Extension coming at you fromMacomb, Illinois, and we have
got a great show for you today,raised bed gardening. I think
I've answered this question manytimes in my career. I've built a
couple of them myself, and so weare going to share with you

(00:26):
today some of the tips, tricks,maintenance, hacks of raised bed
gardening. I hate all thosebuzzwords I just said.
Ken is editing this week. He'llknow what to do. Just leave it
in, I guess. So I'm spoilingthis all. You know I don't do
this by myself every everysingle week because I am joined

(00:47):
every single week byhorticulture educator Ken
Johnson in Jacksonville.
Hi, Ken.

Ken Johnson (00:51):
Hello, Chris. Definitely, got to leave that in
so we get the the algorithms inour favor.

I know. I know. You're yep. And I don't want
we're not doing another take. Wehad to do a retake last week,
and you know what?
We're just going with it thisweek. It's you and me. So here
we are talking raised bedstoday. But how are you doing,
Ken?

I'm I'm doing well. How about you?

I am doing great. Now tomatoes are ripening now
that it is no longer 80 somedegrees at night. The humidity
let up for a bit, but not thatmuch. It's humid again. It's
getting hot again.
Are you getting some some ripelove apples in your garden?

We've gotten a few. At our Lukman Garden, we had a
bunch on Thursday. They'repretty close. So we got pretty
decent amount of rain on Sunday,and I'm a little afraid to go
out and look because I have afeeling we're gonna have a lot
of cracked Mhmm. Tomatoes thatI'm just gonna be tossing into

(01:52):
the compost.
But Yeah. We'll see.

Yes. I I have the same feeling. Lots of cracked
tomatoes. The fungal disease,which we have not really had
issues with these last fewyears, you know, where the
tomatoes just start dying fromthe bottom up, It's definitely
here this year. So lots oftomato dip, you know, the
standard plethora of diseasesthat they can get.

(02:17):
It's it's definitely happening.So, hey, it's August. It's
great.

Yes. Eventually. So this is usually about the time
where, like, yeah, I'm notreally care what the guard
happens in the garden becauseI'm kinda over it. But

Mhmm.

Once it cools off, it'll be invigorated again. But

I'm ready for fall.

Right in the dog days now.

That's that's true. Yes. So, like, when it
comes to gardening and evenlandscaping too, I I know you
have raised beds. I grow inraised beds for, you know,
certain things. Most of theraised beds I grow in are for
work, actually.
But so that is the topic oftoday, Ken, raised bed
gardening. We're going to try togo through everything from, you

(03:05):
know, why we do it all the wayfrom construction, tips, tricks,
materials, what we grow in them,all that. So but I think we
gotta kick us off with this thisweekend of why raised beds?
Because it's a lot of work. Whydo we why would we go through
all this effort to build araised bed to grow our
vegetables?

Yeah. There's there's several advantages, and
there's disadvantages too, whichwe can talk about a little bit.
But with raised beds, you know,you're lifting that that garden,
off the ground in a lot of casesor higher up off the ground. You
know, really kind of basics.You're dry out sooner, warm up
sooner in the spring, you kindaget a jump start.
You don't have to wait as longfor the soil to dry out. It

(03:46):
warms up a little quicker. Andthat's kind of across the board,
one reason why people do it. Ifyou've got soil that's
contaminated, heavy metals,lead, something like that, you
can put this these raised bedsin. And a lot of times, they'll
put some cement geotextilefabric on there and have a
barrier in between thecontaminated soil and the soil

(04:06):
they're bringing in, allows youto grow in areas where you
potentially have contaminatedsoils.
You have poorly drained soils,you know, standing water, stuff
like that. Again, raising thatsoil up off the ground helps it
drain. It allows you to grow inareas where you could
potentially have poor drainingor probably don't want it in
standing water, but areas thatdrained, slowly or just really

(04:28):
other potential soil problems, alot of compaction. You don't
have to deal with breaking thatup. You don't have somewhere to
grow, like, soil available togrow in, you know, up in like
Chicago, you know, core teammeeting we had up there, I don't
know how many years ago now.
We went to several communitygardens that are growing on
asphalt, back top parking lots,stuff like that. So you can put

(04:50):
that raised bed there. Again,usually, you're putting some
kind of lining in between that,but you're filling that, and now
you're you're able to growplants, in areas where you
wouldn't otherwise be able tobecause of that impervious,
surface there. You know,physical mobility issues, if you
have issues with with bending,things like that, again, you're
raising the soil up off theground, can help reduce that.

(05:10):
And and, really, you can buildraised beds pretty much as tall
as you want.
You know, there's gonna be somesome limitations there. It can
be very expensive to do that,but you can raise them up off
the ground. You know, it couldbe four inches. It could be
three feet. You gotta fill that,but, you know, you can raise
that up so you're not having tobend.

(05:32):
Or if, you know, wheelchairaccess make it easier for for
people in a wheelchair to accessthat stuff. So there's, you
know, quite a few differentadvantages to to kinda raising
that stuff stuff off off theground. Mhmm.

Yeah. I think especially the mobility issues,
you know, one of our vegetablegardening classes, when you're
talking about raised beds, we'retalking about also container
gardens. The topic of saladtables comes up. I think that's
what they call these sort ofraised platforms that you can
kind of wheel underneath, andit's like a a table, And and
it's, you know, rectangularshaped and you can grow

(06:08):
vegetables in it. But I stillthink we we we sort of came to
the consensus on that as more ofa a container system for the
salad table.
You know, usually with ourraised beds, we are connected to
the ground in some way. That,you know, we might also we might
have that geotext fabricunderneath there to make sure
that we're not getting anycontaminants or nothing leaching

(06:29):
upwards from the soil orpavement beneath. But, yeah,
it's raised beds. We're reallylooking specifically like this
is has a it is resting on theground, essentially.

Yeah. And like, you know, like a a keyhole garden
Mhmm. Would be something youcould you know, if it's try to
see the kind of picture, it'skinda kidney shaped. So,
basically, you got you got anarea in the middle where you
could walk into, or if you makeit low enough, you could put a
get a wheelchair or somethinginto that, and it's gonna be you
can reach that while you're kindof in the middle of the bed.

(07:02):
Mhmm.

Yeah. And and that's been a huge benefit. It
there there is a cost associatedwith those taller beds, but I
know we've done at our KnoxCounty nursing home project site
for Master Gardeners, we'vebuilt fairly taller raised beds.
And just the the kind of mental,sort of just awakening that

(07:25):
occurs with someone who's beenout inside for a while with with
poor mobility issues and can getoutside and get their hands
dirty, get them, like, allenmeshed in lettuce greens and
all kinds of other plants.There's really an awakening of
their senses and memories.
So they they can be incrediblybeneficial from that that mental

(07:47):
health standpoint as well.

Yeah. But I will say it's you know, there are
some some drawbacks to do inraise beds and kinda mentioning
if there's the cost associatedwith constructing these if
you're gonna be doing a, onethat you're constructing. So the
materials to build it, the thesoil to fill it, is you're gonna
incur some cost there. Maybebecause they do drain, you know,

(08:11):
quicker, that's it can be anadvantage, can also be a
disadvantage. A lot of timesyou're watering these, a little
more frequently than you wouldin an in ground bed, just
because they're they're drainingmuch quicker, especially if
you're not getting a lot of rainor it's really hot.
Not as bad as like a pot, butthey don't have that kind of
necessarily that big reserve ofwater to pull from like you do
in the ground. So there thereare there are gonna be some

(08:33):
drawbacks, you know, likeeverything in life, there's
there's benefits and drawbacksto everything.

It's true. That's true. Well, diving along more
into this raised bed journeyhere, I there's a lot of ways to
build something to make ittaller than the surroundings.
Lots of materials can be used toto build a raised bed. And I did

(09:00):
see in a lot of the research thedefense for having structural
raised beds or confined raisedbeds, those are a couple
different terms, but butessentially building something
to hold that soil.
Because raised beds is a commonpractice in commercial vegetable
production and even landscapeplant production as well, where

(09:21):
you have a machine that goesthrough and mounds the soil up,
but there's no physical, like,wall holding that soil in place.
And there you know, a lot ofthose studies show that there's
quite a bit of leaching anderosion that do occur in those
systems. And then they have youhave to have a machine come back
and reshape the beds everyprobably every year, maybe even

(09:41):
new each time you rotate in andout of crop. So, you know,
require a special mechanicalequipment. You you it it
eventually settles.
You get leaching erosion, all ofthat. So, you know, we're
talking specifically aboutconstructed raised beds. We have
frames around them, and theseframes can be made out of what I
like to use, just wood. I likeusing plain old pine wood that

(10:05):
will rot within five yearsbecause I don't care. I'll just
rip up that rotten board and andand replace it.
But there's not always somethingwhat people can do. Maybe you
want something that will last alittle bit longer. Maybe you
would want something that looksbetter. And so there you know,
if we start down this list ofmaterials, the things that we

(10:26):
can have are first is just thewood. You can choose between
treated lumber or untreatedlumber.
And when you're selecting thattreated lumber, just making sure
that you're avoiding any ofthose reused railroad ties,
anything that would have beenused in in an industrial sense
and railroads is an industrialuse of lumber. And so, you know,

(10:50):
we don't wanna be using thatbecause the chemicals used in
those wood preservatives are notlabeled for use in a residential
landscape. So I know that thereare some people who are very
proud of maybe you live in arailroad town, you're you you
like the idea of having railroadties in your yard as part of
your landscape. If it is from anactual railroad situation, we it

(11:12):
is technically illegal to beusing that because they are not
labeled for use for residences.They are only labeled for
industrial use only.
Normal treated lumber though. Iguess we should talk about this.
In the past, it was CCA,chromated copper arsenate, and
that arsenate might trigger awarning in people's heads, you

(11:35):
know, arsenic. Some of thesechemicals, we do not want
leaching out. We also havecopper in there, but copper is
more toxic to plants than itreally is us.
And it has to be a prettyconcentrated or pretty localized
dose of that copper element toto affect that plant. And so but

(11:55):
that's that CCA product, thathas been phased out for purchase
by homeowners. So you mightstill be able to find that, but
again, it's only for thoseindustrial or those commercial
applications. It is notsomething that you can find
available at the at the lumberstore in in your neighborhood.
So what it has been replacedwith is ACQ or alkaline copper

(12:18):
quaternary.
So it still has that copper inthere. I know some people are
still a little concerned aboutcopper in treated lumber
products, but again, it is, youknow, it is more toxic to plants
than us. So it it is somethingif your plants start declining
because of copper toxicity, youknow, then you could start start
worrying about that. But it itthe leaching of those elements

(12:43):
don't necessarily spreadthroughout the bed. It's very
localized right next to the soilagainst those wood products.
But I use untruth oh, go ahead.

Ahead. I'm sorry. For for that, there is Oregon
State. Some people did a littlestudy in that, and we can put a
link to the to the write up theydid. And it's only moves, I
mean, like, an inch or two fromthat board into the soil.
Like, when they tested in themiddle of the bed, there was no
excess copper. And even the theexcess they found wasn't wasn't

(13:14):
very high. So you're more thanlikely I can say never. Get
myself in trouble. But more thanlikely, you're not gonna have
any issues with with copper,toxicity coming from from your
boards.
Mhmm.

Yes. And I use untreated wood for my raised
beds. You could do cedar, whichis kind of an is a naturally rot
resistant, but I live in a ruralarea. They don't even carry
cedar boards in our localhardware store, so it is a
special order, and they'reexpensive. So I it again, it's

(13:50):
usually a two by six pine boardthat that I'm using untreated.
So do you do you use raised bed,wood material for your raised
beds, Ken?

Yes. We've got some some wood raised beds, and we
use pressure treater pressuretreated. And we've had those for
some of them about eight yearsnow, and we don't have any no
issues with with the woodanyway. Mhmm. Put it that way.
Yeah.

I I'd say we use untreated pine. We installed our
raised beds in 2017 no. 2016 no.2017. And probably in 2022, we
that's when we started swappingthings out.
You know? I was like, oh, yeah.This board's pretty rotted. Pull
that out. We swap that out.

(14:39):
The only thing left behind insome corners was, like, the wood
screw that everything elsetotally rotted away. And but and
we just slap back on a few morea few more pine boards. So,
yeah, I can find some picturesof that. We did order some cedar
boards for some of these raisedbeds. And, you know, they're not

(15:03):
rotting as quickly, but they arestill decomposing.
You can tell they're much youknow, you could if I kicked it
really hard, my foot might gothrough it or something. But and
there's a lot of warping thatseems to have occurred with
those cedar boards. So yeah. Butbut so I would say wood treated,
untreated might be one of themost popular materials for

(15:24):
building your raised beds. But Ihave used logs also, just fallen
trees out of the woods, pulledthose out.
And this was for a raised bedarea at my parents' house, and
we shaped a a nice littlewoodland garden bed, and we
filled that with some fill dirt.And so we have used something

(15:47):
like just fallen trees forraised beds. And that's
something where as they rot, itactually adds to the character
of the garden. And so it was itwas all done on purpose with the
with the hope that they wouldrot. And if we ever found any
more trees, well, we just dragthem over and then rebuild the

(16:08):
border with fallen trees.
So yeah. So lot, I would say,most popular out there.

Yeah. And probably the easiest to

Mhmm.

Find out and probably the cheapest. Maybe not
in the long run if you'rereplacing constantly, but, you
know, if you just wanna getstarted, probably the easiest
and cheapest way to go.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, there is a hybrid of sorts.
There is composite lumber, whichthat is something I I think I
think there's different productsout there. Some might be, like,
sort of a a mixture or a slurryof plastic and wood wood pulp

(16:48):
kind of fibers, which they thenextrude into these they look
like boards or board likeproducts that you can cut just
like a regular piece of wood.
And so so you could do some typeof a a composite like that and
probably they I'm sure out therethere's a straight plastic

(17:09):
raised beds that you could get.I don't know if I would go
straight plastic. It just sortof depends on that material. But
but, yeah, there there's alsothat composite lumber.

Yeah. And that's gonna be at least whenever I've
seen composite lumber, like deckboards and stuff like that, it
is significantly more expensiveMhmm. Than your wood. So keep
that in mind when you're whenyou're pricing things out. As as
you're gonna

Yeah.

Be spending a lot more money on that composite.

That's true. And I don't know if we dare delve into
microplastics, Kent.

Yeah. I don't know if there's been any research
done on how much microplastics,something like composite lumber
would shed. Mhmm. Yeah. Not tobe flipping of it, but it's
everywhere.
So

It sure is. And, yeah, I I don't know. I guess
personal decision, you know, youI I try to avoid as much plastic
as possible use in in mylandscape, but you'll see I'm a
total hypocrite when we get totrip irrigation. But, yes, the
next material, though, is metal.I see a lot of these for sale

(18:15):
these these days, Ken.
You know, just these onlinekits, these metal corrugated
looking, raised beds, they they,like, kinda look like those old
makeshift, water troughs, andpeople are using them, setting
them out. Actually, there was arecent a video done with
University of Nebraska, theirwildlife person, had commented

(18:40):
that these metal raised beds,it's actually a really good
deterrent for voles with a v,that they are not able to climb
up these metal sides to get intoyour vegetable garden. Now I
don't know if that means couldthey burrow under and go up?
That might maybe. Or maybe ifyou bury the sides a little bit,
that would prevent that.

(19:01):
So but metal has been verypopular. I know you have some
metal raised beds at LuukmanGardens.

Yeah. So, yeah, we we started with some wood beds.
They've only lasted two yearsbefore they started falling
apart, so we converted the metalraised beds. And, yeah, they're
the ones we've got, that's justpanels that they screw together.
So, like, you know, the thatbolt and some some washers.
So you can kind of, to anextent, depending on what kits

(19:30):
you get, customize how long itis, how narrow it is. It's
usually two what do I have istwo, two and a half feet or,
like, four feet wide. So, again,depending on depending on how
you configure it. Yeah, you canyou can figure it multiple ways.
You can buy multiple kits andmake a 30 foot long bed, with

(19:51):
those if you wanted.
I will say, I can throw somepictures in here. We do have
some taller ones, and they werea little bit shorter. They
didn't come with any brace rodsto go across, and we're starting
to get some bulging. Some ofthose especially when ones that
were didn't get the groundperfectly flat. It's a little
bit of an angle.
We're getting some of the sidesstarting to bulge out. So we've

(20:13):
gone to the ones the kits thatare a little bit bigger, little
more expensive. You can makelonger beds, but they come with
brace rods to help kind ofprevent some of that that
bowing. Keep that in mind.There's numerous companies out
there, that'll sell them.
They come in all kinds ofdifferent colors. You know, kind
of a white, green, brown, tan.I'm sure there's probably more

(20:34):
out there, but those are theones that you kind of the most
common colors, that you seethere. And then various heights,
you know, eight inches, 24inches, 32 inches. So there's
there there's a lot of differentoptions out there when when it
goes about a lot more than thereused to be anyway.
And

then the other material, probably, maybe one of
the more most permanent outthere is using something like
stone or rock. And whether thatis, like, a a dry laid stone or
maybe you use some type ofmortar to hold it in place, That
that that's definitely anoption, especially for folks who

(21:13):
live in, you know, rockier partsof the world, you know, looking
at people over at the FlintHills Of Kansas where I used to
live, where you dig a hole andyou hit a rock. So it's really
hard to have basements out therewithout digging a bunch of rock
out. So, you know, if you haveaccess to a lot of just stone
naturally around or if you gobuy it or or wherever you might

(21:36):
find it, I I would say thereare, I think, some rules in some
states where they don't want youpulling stones out of natural
areas. So just make sure thatyou're adhering to all local
rules and laws about where youharvest your rock or your
stones.
But then also, we have brick andconcrete construction supplies
that you can use to to to buildyour your your raised beds.

Yeah. I think that's another pretty I I would
say it's probably a little morepopular with, like, ornamental
type veggies. I don't It justseems more permanent than you
would have, like, for avegetable garden. Mhmm. But,
yeah, less cinder blocks seethose quite a bit or even, you
know, brick raised beds is, youknow, houses being built.
Those are built within, like,around a patio or or something

(22:20):
like that. But, again, they'refairly I would say fairly fairly
cheap depending on on what brickor or concrete block you're
choosing, but, you know, it'spretty affordable still.

Mhmm. Well, Ken, in our our our boundless pursuit
of growing plants, we have builtmany raised beds or or put them
together. Whether or not youread the directions, I don't
know. I try to as often as Ican. So do we have any tips, or
should we be should we walkpeople through, like, putting

(22:54):
one together?
Or, like, you know, what whatare some of our construction
tips for folks?

Yeah. I think the the big one is kind of the
corner bracing. And if you'rebuilding a longer bed, make sure
you've got bracing. That'susually four to six feet so you
don't get that bowing. So it'sanother tower or this in the tie
rods, for your metal raised bed,what have you.
But usually for your for yourwooden raised beds, you know, if
you're doing it, it's a realsimple one. Two by fours, two by

(23:22):
six, one by whatever. And you'vegot your your long, your longer
boards, making sure you'rescrewing those into, a corner
piece. A lot of times people usea two by four or four by four in
the corners. Screw into that.
There's brackets that you canbuy, for that purpose. But
really kinda anchoring thosecorners well. For the raised
beds, we have the wooden ones.We got a concrete blocks that

(23:45):
have notches in them that youcan slide a two by six into. And
there's a hole in the middlethat you can drive rebar
through.
So that's how we built ours. Sowith no screws or anything like
that like that in there. Andthen when we built it, we built
some and made them we forgot toaccount for the box when we
built them. So we made them fourfeet wide on the box, add

(24:06):
another four or five inches oneach. So it's more like four and
a half, almost five foot to themiddle.
So it it makes it a littledifficult, to reach the middle.
So when you're building these,typically, I don't recommend any
wider than four feet, if you canreach from all sides. If you can
only reach from one side,looking at more two feet, that's
how far somebody can reach. Ifyou make it wider, then you

(24:29):
gotta start walking in it, whichkinda defeats the purpose, in a
lot of cases of building araised bed. So checking your
dimensions and just making itsturdy enough such your boards
aren't bowing out, I think wouldbe the big things.

Mhmm.
No. I I think that is the themaking sure you don't step in
there is a very important tipfor us because if you build,
especially, a tall raised bed,it's really hard to get a tiller
up there to relieve thatcompaction that your feet cause.
So, yeah, the whole idea of thatraised bed is that we don't have

(25:04):
to walk in it. We don't have tocompact that soil, and it
becomes hopefully a bettermedium for plant growth with the
root system. But we'll talk moreabout that, I think, in in the
fill part here just coming up.
But maybe a few other things,like, definitely making sure we
fought Boeing a lot with oursome of our raised beds. We did

(25:30):
take some pieces of two by four,cut, like, an arrowhead shape on
the bottom of them, screwed thatto the side of the wall of the
the weight raised bed, hammeredthat in the ground. And that
lasted for a little bit, but ofcourse, it rotted, and then
Boeing, you know, kepthappening. So you you know, we
now use a those foot longlandscape spikes. Like, they

(25:53):
look like giant nails.
We drill a hole through there,through the board, and we we put
that into the ground. You couldalso use rebar. You could put
pipe straps on the inside, andthat rebar could just slide
right through that pipe strapand hold that wall in place. The
other thing that some of your,like, pipe straps and and other
fixtures could do is that youcould design your raised bed to

(26:17):
then have, like, a PVC or metalconduit then slide onto that
rebar or into that pipe strap.And then you could put plastic
over top.
Boom. You have an instant lowtunnel, you know, instant season
extension. Also, we're gonna getinto to the drip irrigation side
of things, but as you're puttingthese beds together, think about
how you're going to be gettingwater to them. If you're going

(26:40):
to be using drip irrigation, youknow, where is that that plastic
pipe going to come up? Is itgonna come up the side of the
bed?
Are you gonna install it on thein in the inside of the bed?
Just things like that toconsider when building those
raised beds and small few fancyextra add ons. And I guess the
other thing is it it isimportant to know when you are,

(27:06):
using lumber or wood, screwinginto the ingrain of lumber is
not a very strong connection,and so that's why those corner
blocks are so important, as Kenmentioned. But it it it will
help in the very short term,keeping those boards together.
If but but you really need thatcorner blocking because a a

(27:26):
screw in the at the end of thewood just will pull right out
over time.

Yeah. Or look for the there's a lot of garden
catalogs that will sell justlike the corner bracing kits
Mhmm. And stuff too. They'reusually metal or or something
like that if you want. Maybesomething more a little more
aesthetic than a a four by fourcut off in the ground.

Right. Yes. And I'm sure everyone, you know,
listening, watching, you'veyou've probably built raised
beds yourself. So if you haveany tips or things that you've
learned over the years, pleasefeel free. Leave those comments
down below.
Yeah.

So we teased fill material. And this is one thing
I at least hear that inJacksonville, I've always kinda
struggled with, is finding goodfill material. So I know when
when we first built our raisedbeds, we got a load of of
topsoil. Do that in air quotes.Because when we they delivered

(28:25):
when it got delivered, it wasmore like fill.
There was rocks and bricks andglass and slag in there. And
we're doing this for vegetablegardens, like, not not growing
vegetables in that. We dug itall out. Use it to patch holes
in the guard in the yard. Took awhile to get some grass and
stuff growing in there, so I'mglad we weren't growing

(28:46):
vegetables.
But, you know, you can buy findbagged stuff at the box stores.
A lot of that's really high inorganic matter, of peat Mhmm.
Forest, my product, I think iswhat they call it, mulch. So
that that you're gonna get a lotof settling, with a lot of that
stuff. So I think a lot of timesdepending on where you live is

(29:06):
gonna dictate a little bit whatyou're gonna be using for fill
material and and the quality ofthat.

That
is true. Yeah. And it andespecially, like, if you can use
the soil where you're growing,the native soil, that might be
more of an, like, an idealsituation. But you might be
building a raised bed becauseit's contaminated or because
there's some other issues,compaction, pH, whatnot. So but

(29:38):
in some research that I wasreading through, one of this was
it was like a master's thesis.
I think it was from Georgiawhere this student looked at
every raised beds and the fillcomposition, and they grew kale
and basil in three differentcrops three different crops. So

(29:58):
three iterations of that. I'llprobably get some of these
incorrect here. So maybe Ishould pull this up to actually
read it. But she did look atcompost only, native soil only,
pine bark only, wood fiber mulchonly, so basically wood chips,

(30:24):
and then fifty fiftycombinations of each.
And so it was what this personhad found. And remember, this is
one study, one season, oneperson doing this. And but what
they found was that the compostoverall performed better than

(30:48):
any of the others. However, oncethey got to the third cropping
event of the season, so they'vedone their first one, composted
good, second one, compostedgood, were late in the season,
the native soil was just as goodas the compost. So they were
statistically identical, forthat third that that third round
for that season.

(31:08):
So, really, what the conclusionof the study was is that maybe
an ideal fill for this would besomething fifty fifty compost
native soil mix. And also withthe big caveat that, hey. We
need to keep researching thisbecause a lot more people are

(31:29):
wanting to do raised bedgardening in their yards. And
I'd say, Ken, you mentionedsettling. It's such a pain in
the neck, isn't it?
Raised beds, they always settle.It's because a lot of them are
mostly organic matter, andorganic matter is not permanent.
It goes away. It gets used. Itgoes up in the atmosphere.

(31:51):
The we lose it. Soil, nativesoil, one component of that
native soil is minerals.Minerals do not go away unless
through wind or water erosion ora shovel. But, you know, if none
of those forces act on it, itstays there. And so that is one
of the things that can helplimit or at least reduce some of

(32:13):
that settling is to have actualmineral soil in there, that
sand, silt, and clay.
Now when we go in and we buymineral soil, native soil, you
know, we we do have structure,but a lot of that structure has
been lost in that process ofdigging it up, putting it in
your your in your raised bed,mixing it with compost. So I've

(32:36):
lost a lot of that structure. Itcan be rebuilt over time, but
you're again, you're gonna keepgetting that settling. You're
gonna keep getting that, so youhave to keep adding to it. So
for our raised beds, we did afifty fifty mixture.
And that first year first twoyears, actually, we did to cover
crops underneath our plants. Sowe had tomatoes growing up, and

(32:57):
then underneath our tomatoplants, we had cover crops. And
I feel like that helped tostabilize and create a little
bit of structure in the shortterm. And, no, there's no
research that I'm quoting onthis one or at all. So it's just
something we did.
Like, well, we gotta dosomething so that, you know, it
doesn't drain so quickly andthat we we don't settle so
quickly. So cover crops seem todo a little bit of help. We did

(33:20):
do a, again, anecdotal study inthat we had raised beds in our
high tunnel. One was filled withpotting soil, basically a peat
based mix. One had, compost, andanother was just the native
soil.
We did cover crops on them,throw a picture up here of that
cover cropped, raised bed. Andwe then planted sweet potatoes

(33:45):
that next year, and it reallyseemed like the sweet potatoes
and the native soil seemed to domuch perform much better.
Compost did pretty well too. Thepotting soil did not do well at
all. It was just too sharplydrained.
It just dried out too quickly.

Yeah. I think if if you live in a probably a little
more populated area, you know,lot times if you're getting,
that that raised bed mix, lottimes, it's some kind of organic
matter, maybe some topsoil, withsand mixed in to kinda help with
that that drainage because youlose a lot of that that
structure. There's there'sagain, depending on where you

(34:23):
live, there's probably kindaspecial raised bed mix that you
can get from nurseries or orgarden centers, stuff like that.
But Yep. If you're in a morerural area, at least in my
experience, you're little morelimited as to what you can find.

Yeah.
Yeah. And that that is one ofthose downfalls with raised beds
is you are now starting off withno soil structure. You the soil
has these pores in it. Ideally,a good soil has 50% pore space.
25% of that is water.

(35:01):
The other 25 is air, and therest is mineral and organic
matter content. So that's thewhole soil pie for the ideal
loam soil. But the soil poresizes, they vary in a good soil
structure. There's teeny teenytiny ones and there's big ones
and and everything in between.And because you have different

(35:23):
pore sizes, you are able to holdmore water in those smaller
pores.
It doesn't drain through gravityas quickly, or the roots can't
extract it as easily. And so youyou just have you have better
water holding capacity, and itjust doesn't drain as fast, and
that just doesn't exist in inraised bed soil right off the
bat. It I would imagine, kindatakes years and years to build

(35:47):
some type of structure like thatin a raised bed.

Yeah. And especially as, you know, talking
vegetable gardens, you know,we're only we have stuff in
there for couple months out ofthe year, and we're removing it.
Ornamental bed where you getconstantly have roots in the
ground, you may be building thatstructure up a little bit faster
if you're putting cover crops,which I I've started putting
cover crops in our raised beds.Just basically taking a year

(36:13):
off, let the rye grow up anddie, just just kinda leave it,
let it break down. And I kindahopes of building some of that
structure on ours.
But the more you can have rootsin there, you know, the better.
Because as they're releasingthose chemicals that make, you
know, the stick the soilparticles together and stuff,
you kinda hopefully speed upthat process of that that

(36:33):
structure forming a little bit.Mhmm.

Yeah. Oh, one question I always get from
folks. They've built a reallytall raised bed. They wanna
know, can I put, like, plasticjugs or gravel or something
cheaper in the bottom half ofthis raised bed? So do you ever

(36:58):
get that question, Ken?

I don't know if I have. What do you tell people?

Well, I'm glad you asked. What I tell folks is that
this is a case by case basis.Understandably, not everyone's
budget. You maybe you definitelywant a garden. You wanna grow
your own food.
One situation I'm thinking of,they wanted to grow native
perennials in these raised beds.So you gotta go case by case

(37:29):
basis. If you really can't if ifyou do not have the budget to
fill your raised bed with allsoil, but you're like, I really
wanna grow. I'm like, well, Imean, fill what you can and then
plant. But if you need to add,you know, a little bit of
material on the bottom, I guessgo for it.
From a plant or maybe a planthealth standpoint, that's not

(37:51):
necessarily a goodrecommendation. Because what we
want to give these plants is asmuch soil volume as possible.
And so I tell the folks, look. Iunderstand your budget might not
you might not be able to dothis, but this from the
horticultural, like, planthealth standpoint, we wanna give
them as much root space aspossible. And so you maybe I've,

(38:14):
you know, kinda said, ah, yeah.
Sure. I guess throw a coupleempty milk jugs in there. It's
gonna hurt. But again, withsaying, like, but the the ideal
thing to do is not do that. Andso I I would say, you know, give
them as much roots root space aspossible, especially those

(38:35):
native perennial plants thatthey wanted to grow.
I mean, they got deep rootsystems. They want they they
need room to grow. So yeah.

So yeah, raised beds dry out quick enough as it
is, the less soil you have inthere, the more that more
quickly that's gonna dry out. Sotake that Yeah. In mind

Oh, do oh, and the we talked about geotextile
fabric for contaminated soilconditions. But, I mean, if you
don't have the that siteconstraint, is it necessary to
lay cardboard on the bottom orkill the grass, or do you need
to do anything?

I'll I'll say for my raised beds, we just build
them and fill them. I don't killthe grass beforehand because
that grass probably is not gonnagrow through, in our case, 10
inches of soil. And if it does,oh, I'm kinda the animal you
probably deserve to live if ifyou push

Give it a trophy! Yeah.

And it's, you know, it's it's gonna be pretty easy
to pull if it managed to growall the way through that. And
it's probably not doing all thatwell. So, yeah, I don't I don't
bother killing stuff off beforeI mean, you can, but if Yeah.
Maybe if you've got, like, a youknow, you're only doing a two,
three inch raised bed, you maybenefit a little bit from
killing it off first. But ifyou've got it deep enough

(39:49):
personally, I don't see the Idon't know if seeing the point
is is the right way to put it,but I don't think it's
worthwhile to to to smothereverything and then fill it.
Right.

Yep. I agree. I'd say maybe the the only thing you
would do if it is a reallyshallow one, scalp scalp the
lawn. If you're going on a lawn,just take your mower, drop it to
the lowest setting, and only inthat footprint of that raised
bed, just scalp it down. That'sthe only thing I could think of
in a really shallow raised bed.
Anything more than, I'd say,three, four inches should get

(40:23):
killed by what you're putting ontop of it.

Yeah. And with that cardboard, depending on what's
coated with it, may just shedwater, which Yeah. May cause you
some problems too.

We don't want that.

Yeah. And it's not gonna break down right away
either, more than likely.

Mhmm. Mhmm. Yeah. Well, we've I guess, have we
accidentally gotten gone intomaintenance? Because our our
next topic here was maintenance.
But I don't know. I so we do thecover crops. In terms of
replacing fill, we we do usewood mulch to mulch our our

(41:01):
garden, and that just sort ofbreaks down over time and just
we just sort of keep adding toit. So, you know, if I had we we
used up all of our native soilthat we had, so we don't really
have any of that to add more toit unless we go buy some more.
And and so that you know, it'sreally just we refill our raised

(41:23):
beds with mulch, and thatdecomposes, and it just sorta
just keeps building up thatorganic layer on top.
Do you do anything to fill themup?

Yeah. A couple of ours, the ones we've had for
seven or eight years now,they've settled quite a bit. So
we've actually gotten somebagged raised bed mix put in
there. And I just use, like, a agarden fork to turn it over a
little bit to mix it up, but I'mnot I'm not tilling. I don't
know.
I'm beating up that soil. I'mjust kind of incorporating it a
little bit. I don't know if Ishould admit to this, but

(41:53):
sometimes pots when we're donewith soil and pots, we'll just
dump them in there. May not bethe the best thing to do, but
that's what we do. Well, that'swhat we do.
So do it at your own risk.Because through there is a
potential if you got pathogensor something in there, you know,
you're introducing that intoyour raised beds. But if it's

(42:14):
questionable, we don't. But alot of times, we'll just plant
died for whatever reason, didn'twatered enough. That pot will
get dumped into the raised bedsand Mhmm.
And stuff. So but we do have toprobably next spring, we'll
probably be buying quite a bitof of raised bed mix. Because
some of them have they're two bysix boards. Some of them settled

(42:34):
down below that two by sixboard. So it it's time to do
some some major replenishing.

Well, we also had mentioned this multiple times
about how these raised beds arevery quickly draining. They dry
out very very fast. At leasthere in for our our gardens in
Macomb, we have gone to dripirrigation, and I don't know if

(43:06):
we could do it without dripirrigation. Otherwise, we would
need to have someone out therealmost daily watering. What do
we have?
Over 20 raised beds out here.Because we are growing, for our
food donation garden here, weare growing on an old gravel
driveway. It was the only placethat we were able to get

(43:29):
approval to put our garden, onour site. And, we put the shovel
in the ground, and it didn't govery far. So that's why we
decided to go the raised bedroute.
And, but they do dry out so fastthat if we did not have drip
irrigation, I would losevolunteers immediately because

(43:56):
it can be hot, and it is not funwatering this big garden when
it's so hot. But it's allautomated. We have it on a
timer. It kicks on twice a weekwhen it's hot and dry, and it
irrigates for about an hour.Hour actually, I have it set to
an hour and five minutes.

(44:17):
You can calculate that basedupon the flow rate of the the
drip line that you select, youknow, how many gallons per
minute does it does it let out.And just sort of over the years,
I've just figured that an houris a good amount of time. You go
out with your hands or you coulduse a screwdriver, trowel, or
something, and you probe aroundafter you've run that drip

(44:39):
irrigation system just to seehow deep it's gone. And, you
know, you know, is itpenetrating down from the top of
that raised bed down to thebottom? That's really what we
wanna see.
We don't wanna have any excesswater draining out of the bottom
necessarily, but that that thatis the is the time that works
best for our soil mix as it isnow and the size of our garden

(45:01):
and the flow rate of our dripirrigation system.

Yeah. So the the stuff we have at home, we hand
water. Should get yourirrigation set up. And at
Leuquen, it's the same thing. Wehand water that I usually go out
in the mornings, spend half houror so watering if it needs it.
And and a lot of times later inthere because lot of the raised

(45:25):
beds we have aren't very tall.So as those plants get bigger,
they can get down into that thatnative soil. And it's not this
time of year, it's not quite asbad as early in the spring,
early in the summer. You know,if we get dry, they'll they'll
need a little bit more. I mustsay there's was it last week I
was watering?
Started watering and thenimmediately the water started
coming out the bottom. That thatsoil most of it's bagged, you

(45:51):
know, like potting mix or theraised bed mix, which is kinda
glorified potting mix. So itdried out pretty quick, it just
kinda ran through. So

Yeah. Needs to rehydrate so that it doesn't
shed water. It it absorbs water.

Yeah. But, yeah, the the plants didn't look
considering how quickly thatdrained through there, they
didn't look bad. So I'm I'massuming a lot of those are
probably down into the to thenative soil now and may able to
pull some water from there.Mhmm. Yeah.

And I I would say drip irrigation is not
difficult. Most companiesanymore, you pick out whatever
brand you want. You can goonline, and they have videos
that show you how to installthem, how to how to set them up,
how to maintain them, and how toprep them for winter. Biggest
tip on drip irrigation when itcomes to winterization, any hard

(46:43):
plastic fittings, it works bestto get them out of the garden. A
lot of flexible plastic might beokay, especially if you blow out
your lines, or you drain themproperly so that there's no
water sitting in there when itfreezes.
But even that hard plastic, itI've just you go out in the
spring, you put everythingtogether, do your first test,

(47:06):
and there's these geysers thatpop up randomly in the garden
where you have these tees andelbows and stuff like, oh, I was
just lazy last year. I didn'ttake off those hard fittings,
and they they split. So yeah.And and they are plastic. You
know, for the most part, it'sall plastic materials.
And I said I try not to use asplastic in the in the garden,

(47:26):
but that's one of the thingswhere that is the exception to
my rule because, again, we coulddo it without it.

Yeah. So I've just yeah. I'd say drip irrigation,
do it by hand. Just if it getsdry, you know, we typically rain
it for an inch of water a week.If you're not getting it through
rain, plan on on watering yourraised beds or keep an eye on
them.
Go out and look at the soil,stick your finger in there, and
see if it needs it.

Yep. And this summer, our irrigation system
has been off most of the time.We have not had to water, but
maybe a handful of times earlierin the year. Well, I guess, what
are we watering in these raisedbeds, Ken? What what can we grow

(48:16):
in a raised bed?
Is this just like an in groundgarden?

Yeah. I'd say, again, this is depending on on
the the size of your raised bedand and really kind of the the
plant. I'd say just aboutanything you can grow in the
ground, you could potentiallygrow, in a raised bed. Now on
the vegetable side, you know,for for me, I carrots, potatoes,
I've really got it where I onlygrow those in raised beds

(48:41):
because we have fairly heavysoils, and it's just easier to
grow those, in raised beds. It'seasier to dig them.
Half time you have to dig them,you can just pull the carrots
straight out, and stuff. Don'tget really, disfigured, carrots
unless I don't fit them out.That's really the only time I
get weird looking carrots now.Because that could be because

(49:02):
that is a looser soil. Samething with potatoes.
It's a lot easier to dig thosein in the soil. It's got a lot
of clay in it. A lot easier toclean them too. Well, that way
too. So, you know, for our forour root crops and stuff, I I
think raised beds are reallygood, especially for most of
Illinois where we have or a lotof Illinois where we have
heavier soils.

(49:23):
The one that's commonly you cankinda kinda shy away from
growing in raised beds on thevegetable side, like sweet corn,
just because we need blocks ofthat. Now there are some shorter
types. Those are the on decktype that only gets, what, two
feet tall or something likethat. So, you know, if you can,

(49:43):
you know, big enough raised bedswhere you can put that in box,
you know, that could be apotential. Some of the larger
vining plants, you know,pumpkins and stuff, you could
plant them in the raised bed,but the more likely they're
gonna spill out of that, intothe rest of the landscape, which
is fine.
But if you don't want that, thenyou're looking at trellising
them, or something. But they'regonna more than likely take over

(50:03):
that raised bed unless you'regrowing some of the water some
of the melons, you have moredwarf sizes that you could put
in there. But yeah. In our inour garden, vegetable wise, root
crops, a lot of herbs, stufflike that is what we grow in
there.

Yeah. We we also treat it pretty much like a a a
typical garden that we have alot of tomatoes, peppers, do
cucumbers. We also have a lot oftrellises where we are along
with groundhogs. So the founfencing to keep the groundhog
out is also double does doubleduty as trellising for some of

(50:45):
our cucumbers. We do pole beansinstead of bush beans.
And because with that trellisingsystem that we've we've built
for our raised beds, bush beanswould would take up more space
than probably the amount ofbeans that we could harvest in a
narrower bed. So instead ofgrowing more horizontally, we're

(51:05):
growing more vertically, with alot of our crops. And so, yeah,
we we we use we use fencingquite a bit in our our garden to
grow taller as opposed togrowing outward and sprawling.
So, yeah, no pumpkins for us. Wedo we do cucumbers sometimes on
the ground.
We do we've done one we have oneraised bed with just sprawling

(51:27):
cucumbers in it, and it'sgrowing cucumbers, but the ones
growing on the fencing are stillnicer. Yeah. So, yeah, a lot of
the vining stuff, we we have totrellis it upwards.

Now you mentioned the raised beds keeping voles
out. They don't do anything forgroundhogs. They do not. Okay.
How how do I look when they'veeaten all my peanuts and
carrots?

This darn groundhog. Actually, in our
garden shed at the, here at atthe extension office, it has
burrowed underneath, and it haschewed a hole through the the
floor of the garden shed, and ithas now decided it it likes
living in the shed as opposed tounder the shed much better. So
wildlife. Well, Ken, we do focusa lot on vegetable growing with

(52:23):
our raised beds. But, you know,I mentioned before native
perennials.
You don't have to just dovegetables in our raised beds,
especially, you know, if this isfor someone who, maybe can't
stoop or bend down as well, andso they wanna grow up a little
bit higher. Works really nicelyaround, like, patio settings.
Growing ornamentals, flowers inin raised beds. Dare I say

(52:48):
certain perennials, maybe evenwoody perennials like shrubs. Is
is that possible?

Yeah. It is gonna be possible. Yeah. It's I I
think the kinda the one issue Ican think of with with growing
more perennial stuff in raisedbeds is that soil settling. So
probably, you're just gonna havea hard time adding more to that.
You may just have to live withthe settling, to some extent
because you don't wanna bury,those perennials. But, yeah, you

(53:19):
could certainly certainly dothat. And even we're talking
about our minerals, but, like,something like a blueberry where
we need those really amendedsoils, acidic soils, which we
don't really usually have. InIllinois, that would be a good
option. You know, if you don'twanna grow in a container, build
a raised bed for your yourblueberries or those those
perennials that need a littlemore modified soils or soils

(53:41):
that we don't we can't providein a lot of Illinois.

Yeah. And I maybe in those situations, I would
suggest to folks look more atusing a a native soil, fill, you
know, instead of a fifty fiftycompost native soil, maybe push
that, you know, more 60% nativesoil, maybe 75% native soil.
It's gonna be heavier. It'sgonna be more expensive. There's

(54:07):
gonna be a lot more shrink swellalso with native soils because
if you have native soil, atleast here where we're at, you
have clay.
Clay, you know, there's a lot ofshrink swell when it comes to
when it's from from dry to wet.So you might have to have
beefier walls, you know, youknow, maybe thicker, lumber,

(54:28):
maybe like a four by four or sixby four, you know, basically
larger post like lumber, forthose, you know, more structural
plants like a blueberry. Becausethey make these patio
blueberries, which you can grow.They're cute. They have good
fall colored, pretty whiteflowers in the spring, and and
and fruit blueberries.
So, you know, and there's otherother shrubs and things that we

(54:51):
could, you know, talk about withthese. I'm thinking of aronias,
those those low scape moundsthat they also have these days,
some of our fibrinums that are,you know, can be planted around
there. So in essence, what we'resaying, you might have to have
sturdier raised beds if you'relooking to do, like, perennial
or even woody shrubs in thesebeds.

And up the regular soil content.

Mhmm. Yes. Yep. Well, that was a lot of great
information about growing inraised beds, building raised
beds, how materials whatmaterials we use to to put them
all together with a good growingpodcast production of University
of Illinois Extension, editedthis week by Ken Johnson. Hey,

(55:38):
Ken.
Thanks for hanging out with metoday, talking about raised beds
and editing for two weeks in arow. I do appreciate that. Thank
you.

Yes. Thank you. One of these days I'll get my I keep
saying this. I'm gonna get mydrip irrigation set up for my
raised beds.

Just give me a call. I

keep saying it, I'll speak it into existence one
of these days. Mhmm. Let's dothis again next week.

Oh, we shall do this again next week. Well, one
of the components of a fill forraised beds is compost. So let's
talk about compost next week.How do we make it? We will be
diving into the old compost binand see what's going on in
there.
Listeners, thank you for doingwhat you do best, and that is
listening or if you're watchingus on YouTube watching. And as

(56:25):
always, keep on growing.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep. 220 From the ground up: How to create and care for raised bed gardens | #GoodGrowing