September 30, 2025 • 33 mins
For this final episode in our Raised Bed series, we’re talking about how to plan your raised bed garden. If you’ve never grown in a raised bed, there are some nuances to the planning and planting aspect, no matter what material you built the bed from. And if you’re already gardening in raised beds, but it turned into a jungle by July and a desert by August, this episode is also for you!
So, today on Just Grow Something we’re mapping out a season-long plan. Learn how to plan a high-yield raised-bed vegetable garden - choose smart spacing for airflow and disease prevention, interplant and succession-plant for nonstop harvests, use mulch to save water and block weeds, and more!So, grab a pencil, a piece of graph paper and a coffee, my gardening friend, we are building a raised-bed garden plan. Let’s dig in!
Don't forget you can save 20% and get FREE shipping on your new raised bed from PlanterBoxDirect.com when you use code JUSTGROW20 now through October 15th!
Resources:
Ep. 265: How Big Should a Raised Bed Be?
Square-foot Chart free download: https://preview.mailerlite.io/forms/757286/166825529232590223/share
For full show notes and transcript, visit https://justgrowsomething.com/episode/how-to-plan-a-raised-bed-garden-ep-269
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
This whole month we've walked through designing a raised bed
garden, from what sizes to choose, what materials to use to
build them, how to properly fillthem, and of course, my
interview with Gardner Scott last week.
For this final episode in the series, we're talking about how
to grow in raised beds. You know, if you've never grown
(00:20):
in a raised bed, there are some nuances to the planning and the
planting aspect since you are technically gardening in a box
essentially no matter what material you built the bed from.
And if you've already gardened in a raised bed, but it turned
into a jungle by July and then adesert by August, this episode
is also for you. So today on Just Grow Something,
(00:43):
we're mapping out a season long plan, what goes where, who
shares space, how to keep diseases down and using mulch to
hold in moisture, block weeds and moderate the soil
temperature. So grab a pencil, a piece of
graph paper and I want a coffee.My gardening friend, we are
building a raised bed garden plant.
(01:04):
Let's dig in. Hey, I'm Karen and what started
as a small backyard garden 20 years ago turned into a lifelong
passion for growing food. Now as a market farmer and
horticulturist, I want to help you do the same.
On this podcast, I am your friend in the garden teaching
evidence based techniques to help you grow your favorites and
build confidence in your own garden space.
(01:25):
So grab your garden journal and a cup of coffee and get ready to
just grow something. Big thanks to those of you who
have reached out and said that you like the idea of doing a
whole deep dive series like the one that we've done on raised
beds this month. If you have an idea for
something that you would like tohear about in depth over
(01:47):
multiple episodes, please reach out and let me know.
There is lots of really good information that I can share
about a lot of topics that I canbe really in depth about that
don't really or can't really be covered in just one episode.
So this, if this is a format that you like, drop me a comment
(02:09):
in Spotify or on YouTube or sendme an e-mail or DM me or
whatever. I would love to hear from you.
And if you don't like this format, well that's OK, you can
tell me that too. I can take it.
So let's just assume that you have already decided on the
dimensions of your bed or you have some existing beds in
(02:31):
place. Now, if you're not there yet, go
back. Listen to episode 265 about
choosing the right size raised bed.
I will link to that in the show notes.
Essentially, you're going to want to choose something that is
comfortable for you and your planning is going to revolve
around that size. I have beds in all different
kinds of of dimensions, and so Ilay them out on graph paper with
(02:55):
the dimensions to scale so I know exactly what I can fit into
each of those beds as I'm planning.
Is it easier to start with all of your beds the same size?
Yeah, probably. Do you have to?
No, you just have to be familiarwith each bed's size when you
plant because this is going to dictate how many of each type of
(03:18):
plant that you can fit into thatbed.
So graph paper is a fantastic tool for this.
You can also use a spreadsheet just by, you know, kind of
marking a border along a specific number of cells that
correspond to the dimensions of your bed.
If you want to do this electronically, SO1 cell would
equal like 1 square foot. Are there online tools that you
(03:41):
can use? Yes, absolutely, and you can.
Some of them are free, some of them are paid, but they let you
input like the dimensions of your bed and then we'll break it
into a bed space for you so thatyou can place your plants.
You can do this with your in ground garden planning too.
But you know, specifically for raised bed gardening, it's very,
(04:03):
very accurate. But no matter what you use, it
is important to be accurate. So know the dimensions of your
bed. For the purposes of today's
discussion, we're just going to assume that we're planting in a
four foot wide by 8 foot long raised bed, 4 feet wide so that
(04:24):
you can reach from both sides without any foot traffic in the
bed. We'll also assume that it's in
full sun with easy access to water.
And we're going to assume that the bed is running east to West
so that when we place the tallerplants in the bed, they can run
along that N edge so they don't cast shade over everybody else.
(04:45):
Now, obviously, if you are one of my gardening friends in the
Southern Hemisphere, this is going to be the opposite for
you. We're not taking into
consideration whether or not youare going to intentionally try
to shade any plants or if you'vegot shorter beds or if you've
really got parts and or whatever.
This is what we're working with today.
And just know that everything would need to be adjusted based
on your individual conditions. The key here is that we're going
(05:08):
to work in blocks instead of long rows, so every square inch
of the bed is going to be growing food and there is no
bare soil. The spaces between our
containers, between our beds, whatever they are, are for
walking in. We don't need that extra space
in the bed, which means we can utilize the entirety of that
(05:31):
bed. The caveat here is that we don't
want to overcrowd the plants, especially if we are gardening
in high humidity. Hello, West Central Missouri.
OK, so as we plan, we need to keep in mind two things, the
mature size of the plant and howlong the plant remains in place.
(05:54):
This is not just key for airflowand disease prevention, but it's
also a component in our interplanting, which we'll cover
as we move on. Let's start by thinking about
our spacing, not just for production purposes, but also
for airflow and disease prevention.
Airflow is absolutely critical in raised beds because we are
(06:15):
gardening below the level of thebed material we don't usually
have. The soil level in our raised
beds reach all the way up to thetop right.
Just like in a pot or a container, the soil usually sits
several inches below the lip, sohaving good airflow means those
(06:35):
leaves dry faster because wet foliage always equals a higher
risk for bacterial or fungal diseases.
So we need to space our plants appropriately and support those
vining crops up off of the soil so that we can increase that air
movement when the leaves dry quickly, especially after rain
(06:57):
or maybe overhead irrigation. A lot of these diseases can
never get a foothold if those leaves are nice and dry.
This means giving those plants some elbow room and helping them
to grow up and not out. So trellising is a really great
way to create that airflow for those plants that climb.
So this means trellising or caging our tomatoes and our
(07:20):
cucumbers, right? So if we can set those tomatoes
about 18 inches to two feet apart, either in cages or a long
trellis, and then clip those lower leaves so that nothing is
touching the soil, that is goingto be beneficial for airflow.
Same idea for cucumbers, train them up a trellis.
I found a really significant difference this year between my
(07:44):
different beds in how well my cucumbers performed with a
trellis versus without. The cucumbers that were growing
up, the trellis definitely produced better.
The fruits were just better, right?
They had fewer fungal diseases and the fruits were up off the
soil, so they were less open to predation by the pill bugs,
(08:07):
which I had a really big problemwith this year.
I was also able to grow more plants in that same space
because they weren't crawling across the soil.
They were growing up, which meant I was able to space the
cucumbers only about 6 inches apart across each of those
trellises. Where the beds?
(08:28):
Where they just sprawled across the bed.
Those plants had to be spaced atleast a foot apart, if not more,
to prevent them from overcrowding.
That is twice as many cucumber plants.
Plus that gave me room to plant things at the base of that
trellis to fill the rest of the bed.
Pull beans, same thing. Give them something to good to
(08:49):
climb up for airflow and then you can plant something else in
the remainder of that bed. Some other spacing would be
using Bush beans, doing Bush beans at about four inches
apart, Peppers can be just about8 to 12 inches apart if you're
staking them. Peppers like to hold hands a
little bit and staking them keeps them upright when they
(09:10):
start to get really heavy with the fruit so they're not falling
all over each other. And it also gives you some more
room to sort of plant in and around those plants.
Things like kale where you know,if you're planning on growing
them across the entire season instead of just as a spring
crop, you're likely going to be harvesting them the outer leaves
first, right? Which means they're going to
(09:31):
create this stock and then you're going to be harvesting
from the bottom. As the plant grows up, they're
going to kind of create their own airflow naturally at that
point. So it's okay to space them where
the leaves might be touching each other.
So 6 to 8 inches apart is going to be fine because again,
they're sort of naturally going to be lifting themselves up off
the ground. Broccoli, on the other hand,
(09:54):
gets really big and really leafyand it definitely needs that air
flow. So it really is best to space
broccoli plants about 18 inches apart all the way around.
Now that is going to seem like ahuge amount of space between
those plants when they're littleand we first transplant them,
(10:17):
but we'll minimize that wasted space.
When we talk about interplanting, just keep in mind
when we're planting our spacing,we're thinking about the mature
size of the plant prior to harvest and the the broccoli
plants get really big and then they're also in the bed for an
extended period of time. If you look on the seed packet
(10:38):
and the spacing just doesn't seem to make sense to you
because it's either hard to visualize what the mature plants
will look like or just doesn't seem right to you in your
garden. You're not alone.
OK. A lot of the spacing
recommendations that are put onto seed packets are actually
based on best performances on a commercial scale.
(10:59):
So this means, you know, workingin beds that are generally 36 to
48 inches wide with like an 18 inch spacing in between the
rows, because that's the size ofa tractor tire, right?
And the spacing is designed for harvesting equipment or
irrigation systems or whatever. It's not generally spaced
specifically for home gardening,honestly, just because there
(11:23):
aren't a lot of studies going onto see what works best in the
home garden. So, you know, plant breeders are
more interested in what's going on in terms of the commercial
guys. And then we have to learn by
doing and practicing and trial and error and by just asking
people who have done it before us.
So if you want a really good guide to start with when you're
(11:46):
learning how to sort of grow in this block mentality within your
raised beds, then you can start by following the square foot
gardening method, the one that was made famous by Mel
Bartholomew. Sorry.
You know, Gardner Scott and I talked about this last week
about Mel's mix. We talked about it, you know,
(12:06):
during the episode on filling the raised beds.
But essentially he sort of spearheaded this idea of the
number of plants that you can fit into a 12 by 12 space and
then working through your gardenin that type of a grit.
So it's going to give you a really good idea of what will
fit into a 12 inch by 12 inch section of your bed, or two of
(12:27):
those sections if you're growingsomething that needs a lot of
leaf space, like that broccoli, right?
This is a really good starting point.
I put together a download for you that has a chart of over 50
different plants and the recommended number of those
plants that you can put into 112by 12 square section of your
(12:48):
bed. It is very, very helpful when
you're sitting down and trying to layout your garden.
So I will link to that in the show notes for you.
This is what I mean by planting in a grid and not in rows.
Whether you use that chart or just you plant based on the
recommended spacing on the packet, whatever it is, think in
terms of space around the plant,not space in a row.
(13:15):
So like, instead of placing yourBush beans 4 inches apart in
rows that are 12 inches apart, we're just going to group them 4
inches apart from each other in a solid block in one part of the
bed or the entire bed, whatever you need.
Then we can fill in the rest of the bed with other crops, or we
(13:39):
can plant them in alternating blocks throughout the bed so
that we're not creating a littlemini monoculture in the bed that
attracts the insects that want to eat those plants, right?
This is a form of interplanting,alternating the plants that
you're growing, making sure to choose plants from different
plant families. So it's confusing the insects.
(14:00):
Now, if we're looking at things that don't trellis and that do
tend to take up a lot of space in the bed for an extended
period of time, how do we fit more plants in without causing
airflow and fungal issues? That's where we look at
combining interplanting and succession planting.
That's next. I wanted to give one more really
(14:24):
big thank you to Planter Box Direct for sponsoring this
month's series on raised bed gardening.
It's the support of companies like them that eases a little
bit of the financial burden on creating this show and I love
shouting out companies whose product I use in my day-to-day
life. Planter Box Direct's planters
have become my go to when replacing old beds or adding new
(14:48):
garden space to our farm and I happily share that with just
just about every gardener I meetwho is looking for high quality
materials that last a lifetime but also look good in the
garden. If you've not gone to check out
all their color and configuration options, I highly
encourage you to take a look at planterboxdirect.com once you've
(15:08):
decided on your new raised planter because you are going to
love the way they look. Use the special code Just Grow
20 Now through October 15th to save 20% and also get free
shipping during this special series.
Find my favorite raised plantersat Planter Box direct.com and
use code Just Grow 20 for significant savings now through
(15:30):
October 15th. The link is in the show notes.
OK, now let's make our one raised bed do multiple jobs
using interplanting and succession planting.
First off, what's the differencebetween the two?
Interplanting is otherwise knownas intercropping in commercial
farming. Basically just pairs crops with
(15:51):
different maturities and different sizes or different
root depths in order to make themost efficient use of the
available light and the space, right?
So think about using things likeradishes and leaf lettuces that
are pretty fast maturing crops in between things that are
slower to mature, like Peppers or tomatoes, right?
Succession planting gives us theability to continue harvesting
(16:14):
across the entire season so thatwe don't have gaps in our
harvest. And we're doing this by planting
the same crop multiple times at specific intervals.
So the great thing about combining these techniques in
raised planters is that by usingblocking or square foot layout
in the bed, it makes it easier to design our inter planting and
(16:39):
schedule our succession plantings.
Because we have equal spacing inall directions, we're not
worried about row spaces interrupting the pattern.
So not only are we fitting more into the same space, but we have
more control over it because it's more confined.
This also means that we're preventing a little mini
monoculture from happening. So not only is it more
(17:02):
efficient, a more efficient use of space, but it also confuses
the pest, specifically if we areinterplanting different plant
families. So let's take our broccoli as
the example, OK? Broccoli takes up a lot of space
at its mature size, and it generally stays in the bed for
upwards of 60 days if you're transplanting from seedling, 90
(17:24):
days if you're sowing it directly in the bed from seed.
That's a long time for one crop to take up that much space,
depending on the number of headsof broccoli that you want to
harvest, right? If you have a standard variety
that produces a head that's between like 4 and 8 inches
across, then that leaf span is going to be anywhere from 12 to
(17:45):
24 inches across and about 18 to24 inches tall.
That's a big plant, but like we mentioned before, those plants
are pretty small when they firststart out, and they take about a
month or so to really start thatlarge leaf spread.
So we can interplant something else between those broccoli
(18:05):
plants to take advantage of thatopen space while it's available.
So if our broccoli are spaced 18inches apart in our grid, we can
look at what might fit in between those spaces
temporarily, something that can be to maturity and harvested in
about 30 to 45 days before the broccoli crowds it out, right.
(18:29):
So if we go and look at our chart and we see, OK, what can
be planted in those 12 by 12 spaces, and we find we have room
for that will mature quickly. Why does this work?
Because if we have two broccoli plants that are spaced 18 inches
apart, that's 36 inches, that's three of our 12 by 12 squares.
(18:50):
So in the beginning stages, if our broccoli is centered in one
square each and they're really small and there's one square
between them, we have that one square where we can put
something temporarily until the broccoli takes over.
So what matures in 30 to 45 daysthat grows in the same weather
conditions, those cooler days that broccoli does that is not
(19:12):
in the same plant family. Radishes, leaf lettuce, baby
spinach, these are all things that can fit into that space
between the broccoli get to maturity before the broccoli
takes over and they are in different plant families.
So we get to confuse those pests.
So if we have a four foot by 8 foot bed and we only use half of
(19:34):
that bed for our broccoli and weuse the spaces between the
broccoli for those other quick growing crops, we can fit 8
heads of broccoli. Plus, if we look at that chart,
16 leaf lettuces per square foot, 9 spinach plants that we
can harvest as baby leaf, or we can broadcast seed the spinach
and cover the entire square footand then 16 radishes per square
(19:57):
foot. So in the other air, 8 square
feet that are initially not taken up by the broccoli.
We can grow 48 radishes, 32 leaflettuce plants and 27 spinach
plants or whatever other combination you want and still
have 16 square foot of space in that same bed to grow something
else. So you're going to have some
(20:18):
killer lettuce and spinach and radish salads in the weeks
leading up to your broccoli harvest.
Those plants are going to be outof the way for the final couple
of weeks that it takes the broccoli to get to maturity.
And then as you start harvestingthat broccoli, you can pull
those plants, amend the soil, and plant another crop.
Now, what if you don't want all of that lettuce and spinach and
(20:42):
radishes to come to maturity allat the same time?
That's a lot of salad to eat allat once, and then you've got
nothing for the couple of weeks while you wait for your
broccoli. That is where the succession
planting comes in, right? Some of the plants that we grow
give us a pretty continual harvest up until the 1st fall
(21:03):
frost. So things like your
indeterminate tomatoes and Peppers and eggplant and pole
beans, these all continue to produce basically until they
can't. But most of our other crops are
either one and done, like broccoli or cabbage or head
lettuces or our carrots and beets.
Or maybe they only produce for afew weeks before they've just
given their all and then they'redone.
(21:25):
So like our Bush beans or our sugar snap peas.
Or if you're doing come again crops like lettuce or spinach
that eventually can't handle theheat, right.
So if we want salads the whole spring into the early summer,
then we have to plant those crops in succession so we don't
get them all at once. This means one of two things.
(21:46):
We either plant the same crop ina different spot every two to
three weeks and that staggers the harvest, or we plant
different varieties of that cropthat have differing maturity
dates all at the same time to stagger the harvest.
So if we have a whole other 16 square feet in that garden bed
(22:08):
that's not being taken up by ourbroccoli, then we can use that
for succession plantings of things that we want to eat over
a longer period of time. And then we can inter plant
those crops to transition from one season to another.
OK. And again, because we are
planting in our raised beds in agrid, this is super easy to plan
(22:32):
by laying it out on graph paper and just marking some dates so
that we know how long each thingis in place.
Can we do all of this in a raised bed or in an in ground
bed instead of a raised bed? Yeah, absolutely.
But it tends to need some more adjustment because we have to
consider the edges of those bedsand where the plants may spill
(22:53):
over into our walkways. So it's doable.
It's absolutely how I plan my beds, and it's how I teach my
students in my plan, like a pro course, but it takes some
practice. I find doing this in a raised
bed is almost foolproof from thestart.
If we're always considering the mature size of the plant and how
(23:15):
long the plant remains in place,then we're usually going to be
OK. And we're pairing that high,
low, fast, slow, right? And remember I said that after
we pull that broccoli, we're going to amend and then we're
going to plant something new, right?
This is another type of a succession planting that we
refer to as relay planting. SO1 crop follows another follows
(23:39):
another based on the season. So if you plan this all out on a
grid ahead of time, there will be no gaps in your harvest and
there will be no gaps in your bed where the soil is exposed
and not being productive. Now, Speaking of soil exposure,
coming up, we're going to talk about one of my favorite
subjects, mulch, and how it helps us control weeds and
(24:03):
disease in the raised bed, but also how it can help us to
manage the moisture level and the soil temperature in our
raised beds. That's next.
Mulch is your bed's security blanket.
A2 to three inch layer of clean straw or shredded leaves or
(24:24):
dried grass clippings. Unsprayed grass clippings,
please and thank you, is going to block the new weeds from
blowing in and taking hold. It's going to stop any muddy
rain splash that spreads diseases from the soil up onto
the plant leaves. So this is going to further
protect us against the fungal and bacterial diseases, right?
(24:44):
But mulch is also going to help us conserve that soil moisture.
You know, sometimes despite our best efforts, the composition of
our soil in our raised bed mightdrain a little too quickly for
our liking. If this is happening, you likely
need to add some more organic material to the bed in the
offseason. But in the meantime, a heavy
(25:05):
layer of mulch is going to slow the rate at which the water
soaks into the bed. And it's going to protect the
soil surface from the drying effect of the sun's rays, which
will help you retain whatever moisture doesn't drain from the
soil. It's also going to help you with
temperature control of the soil because there is a smaller
volume of soil in a raised bed than in the ground.
(25:26):
Obviously the bed is going to tend to heat up sooner in the
spring, and we like that. But that also means that the
soil temperature can fluctuate dramatically if your
temperatures swing widely in thespring like they tend to here.
So if you can add a good layer of mulch after the soil has
initially warmed in the spring, then it's going to help to
(25:48):
mitigate some of those swings asit remains in place.
It's going to actually have the opposite effect in the summer
months. So if it's a light colored mulch
like straw, it's going to absorbfewer of the sun's rays and that
means keeping the root zone of the crops cooler as the
temperatures heat up. This is going to prevent those
(26:09):
late spring crops that get harvested in the early summer,
like beets or carrots from bolting prematurely because the
temperatures got super hot before they were ready to
harvest. And then bonus organic mulches
slowly add organic matter as they breakdown.
So by the end of the season, youcan just add a good layer of
(26:29):
compost and some source of nitrogen right on top of your
mulch and then put some more mulch on top.
And it's going to incorporate that under layer as organic
matter over the winter time. And it's going to be ready to
plant into into the spring. And it's also going to increase
your biomass. It is a win, win, win all the
way around. Just keep the mulch pulled back
(26:49):
a little bit from the base of the plants by an inch or two and
you are golden. OK, so let's bring this whole
plan together, right? Picture this with me.
Along the north edge of our 4 by8 bed, we put a sturdy trellis
that will eventually hold 4 tomato plants about 18 inches
apart. In the spring we use that tomato
(27:11):
space twice by sowing a quick crop of radishes in blocks in
between head lettuces to start with, and then we're going to
plant those tomatoes in between the lettuces.
When the soil temperature and the day temperatures are right
for planting tomatoes, the radishes and the lettuce will be
out of the way before the tomatoes need the elbow room.
(27:32):
At that point you could plant whole beans along that trellis
to fill in the space between thetomatoes.
Now to the east side of the bed we can do another short little
trellis for some sugar snap peasin the spring, and these can
give way to Bush beans in two week waves for most of the rest
of the season. The center of the bed basically
(27:55):
starts as salad central. We'll start with several blocks
of carrots and beets and greens sewn about two weeks apart.
These can give way to summer squashes in the center of the
bed. As the season warms.
Those squashes can produce all summer but then be pulled in the
late summer or early fall to give way for more salad greens
(28:19):
and carrots and beets for the fall while the tomatoes stay in
place as we plant more lettuces under them, protected from the
heat of the lay summer giving way to a fall crop.
Now the front edge of that bed can be planted to onions in the
early spring that are harvested in the early summer with a relay
(28:39):
crop of basil and parsley replacing them.
And that takes us all the way through until the 1st frost.
We can even squeeze some extra goodies into the corners and the
edges like zinnias, calendula, dills, cilantro, thyme, all
things that complement what we're growing.
These are going to feed pollinators and the tiny little
beneficials that eat the aphids and the caterpillars while also
(29:01):
contributing to our harvests is keep the taller flowers to the
bed corners or the north edge soyou don't shade the other plants
and you're good to go. Add a 2 to 3 inch blanket of
mulch everywhere in the bed to hold in moisture, regulate the
soil temperature and keep those plant leaves clean and you are
all set. This is a tremendous amount of
(29:23):
food from one single 4 by 8 bed.Let's add it up across the
entire season. In the spring, we're looking at
64 radishes, 16 heads of lettuce, 20 lbs.
Of leaf lettuce, 5 lbs. Of spinach, 3 lbs of arugula, 2
large bok choy or 8 little baby bok choy, 64 carats, 27 beets,
(29:44):
and 6 lbs of sugar snap peas. As we transition into the
summer, those relay plantings can yield up to 80 lbs of
tomatoes, 35 lbs of pole beans, 20 lbs.
Of Bush beans, 40 lbs. Of zucchini or yellow squash or
specialty summer squashes, 63 onions, plus a bounty of basil
and parsley through the summer. Which leads us into our fall
(30:07):
harvest of another 16 heads of lettuce, 30 lbs.
Of leaf lettuce, 32 carats, 18 beads, plus all the other herbs
and flowers you could be harvesting along the edges.
And we didn't even talk about the the succession planting that
you could do for things like kale and spinach and carrots
that can get to maturity before the 1st frost and be harvested
(30:29):
through the winter in a lot of areas for additional harvests.
I'm going to say it again, that is a tremendous amount of food
from 1/4 by 8 foot bed. Now of course this depends on
your climate, how long your growing season is, and the
fertility of your soil. But I actually underestimated
(30:50):
some of the yield on these things.
So even if you only harvested half of what I mentioned, you
would have gotten over 200 lbs of produce from that bed.
And if that sounds ridiculous, Ican confirm that my 4x4 beds
this year have averaged about 150 lbs of produce from each bed
(31:14):
due to inter plantings and succession plantings.
And that's without amending thempart way through the season as I
change crops. So yes, that number tracks.
OK, so tips for planning your raised bed?
Plan the box to be 3 to 4 foot wide, however long you want it
(31:35):
to be. Put your trellises on the north
and maybe temporarily on the east, and plan your garden space
out on a grid. Make sure that you're spacing
your plants for airflow. So trellis, those vining crops
don't handle any wet foliage, please.
And use the grid to plan how many plants per section so
they're not interfering with each other.
(31:56):
We're concerned about size at maturity and the amount of time
that they spend in the bed. Use your interplanting high,
low, fast, slow, right, tall plants with short ones, fast
maturing crops with the slow ones.
Stack the timing and the height of your plants and then do your
six sessions, small sowings everyone to two weeks.
Relay those new crops in as the other ones finish.
(32:18):
Mulch everything with a 2 to 3 inch depth of straw or leaves or
clippings. This is going to save your
water. It's going to block weeds.
It's going to reduce that disease.
Splash and modify those temperatures and then add in
your flowers and your herbs at the edges for season long blooms
and even more support for beneficial insects.
Just mind your height and your airflow.
(32:39):
I will leave that link to that chart to download that tells you
how many plants you can put in each 12 by 12 space in your
raised bed. I really hope that this series
has convinced you how effective growing in raised beds can be.
If you have fantastic soil whereyou garden and the in ground
(33:00):
beds allow you to grow what you need in the space that you have
them, no harm, no foul. Keep doing what you're doing,
but if you struggle at all with soil fertility or perennial
weeds, the space needed to grow what it is that you want to
grow, water retention, whatever,I absolutely encourage you to
try just one raised bed for nextseason.
(33:23):
Get it set up now. Get it filled in, let it mellow
over the winter while you grab your grid paper or your
spreadsheet and you lay out the garden in the most efficient
manner that you can. You will be blown away by the
results. Until next time, my gardening
friends, keep on cultivating that dream garden, and we'll
talk again soon.
This whole month we've walked through designing a raised bed
garden, from what sizes to choose, what materials to use to
build them, how to properly fillthem, and of course, my
interview with Gardner Scott last week.
For this final episode in the series, we're talking about how
to grow in raised beds. You know, if you've never grown
(00:20):
in a raised bed, there are some nuances to the planning and the
planting aspect since you are technically gardening in a box
essentially no matter what material you built the bed from.
And if you've already gardened in a raised bed, but it turned
into a jungle by July and then adesert by August, this episode
is also for you. So today on Just Grow Something,
(00:43):
we're mapping out a season long plan, what goes where, who
shares space, how to keep diseases down and using mulch to
hold in moisture, block weeds and moderate the soil
temperature. So grab a pencil, a piece of
graph paper and I want a coffee.My gardening friend, we are
building a raised bed garden plant.
(01:04):
Let's dig in. Hey, I'm Karen and what started
as a small backyard garden 20 years ago turned into a lifelong
passion for growing food. Now as a market farmer and
horticulturist, I want to help you do the same.
On this podcast, I am your friend in the garden teaching
evidence based techniques to help you grow your favorites and
build confidence in your own garden space.
(01:25):
So grab your garden journal and a cup of coffee and get ready to
just grow something. Big thanks to those of you who
have reached out and said that you like the idea of doing a
whole deep dive series like the one that we've done on raised
beds this month. If you have an idea for
something that you would like tohear about in depth over
(01:47):
multiple episodes, please reach out and let me know.
There is lots of really good information that I can share
about a lot of topics that I canbe really in depth about that
don't really or can't really be covered in just one episode.
So this, if this is a format that you like, drop me a comment
(02:09):
in Spotify or on YouTube or sendme an e-mail or DM me or
whatever. I would love to hear from you.
And if you don't like this format, well that's OK, you can
tell me that too. I can take it.
So let's just assume that you have already decided on the
dimensions of your bed or you have some existing beds in
(02:31):
place. Now, if you're not there yet, go
back. Listen to episode 265 about
choosing the right size raised bed.
I will link to that in the show notes.
Essentially, you're going to want to choose something that is
comfortable for you and your planning is going to revolve
around that size. I have beds in all different
kinds of of dimensions, and so Ilay them out on graph paper with
(02:55):
the dimensions to scale so I know exactly what I can fit into
each of those beds as I'm planning.
Is it easier to start with all of your beds the same size?
Yeah, probably. Do you have to?
No, you just have to be familiarwith each bed's size when you
plant because this is going to dictate how many of each type of
(03:18):
plant that you can fit into thatbed.
So graph paper is a fantastic tool for this.
You can also use a spreadsheet just by, you know, kind of
marking a border along a specific number of cells that
correspond to the dimensions of your bed.
If you want to do this electronically, SO1 cell would
equal like 1 square foot. Are there online tools that you
(03:41):
can use? Yes, absolutely, and you can.
Some of them are free, some of them are paid, but they let you
input like the dimensions of your bed and then we'll break it
into a bed space for you so thatyou can place your plants.
You can do this with your in ground garden planning too.
But you know, specifically for raised bed gardening, it's very,
(04:03):
very accurate. But no matter what you use, it
is important to be accurate. So know the dimensions of your
bed. For the purposes of today's
discussion, we're just going to assume that we're planting in a
four foot wide by 8 foot long raised bed, 4 feet wide so that
(04:24):
you can reach from both sides without any foot traffic in the
bed. We'll also assume that it's in
full sun with easy access to water.
And we're going to assume that the bed is running east to West
so that when we place the tallerplants in the bed, they can run
along that N edge so they don't cast shade over everybody else.
(04:45):
Now, obviously, if you are one of my gardening friends in the
Southern Hemisphere, this is going to be the opposite for
you. We're not taking into
consideration whether or not youare going to intentionally try
to shade any plants or if you'vegot shorter beds or if you've
really got parts and or whatever.
This is what we're working with today.
And just know that everything would need to be adjusted based
on your individual conditions. The key here is that we're going
(05:08):
to work in blocks instead of long rows, so every square inch
of the bed is going to be growing food and there is no
bare soil. The spaces between our
containers, between our beds, whatever they are, are for
walking in. We don't need that extra space
in the bed, which means we can utilize the entirety of that
(05:31):
bed. The caveat here is that we don't
want to overcrowd the plants, especially if we are gardening
in high humidity. Hello, West Central Missouri.
OK, so as we plan, we need to keep in mind two things, the
mature size of the plant and howlong the plant remains in place.
(05:54):
This is not just key for airflowand disease prevention, but it's
also a component in our interplanting, which we'll cover
as we move on. Let's start by thinking about
our spacing, not just for production purposes, but also
for airflow and disease prevention.
Airflow is absolutely critical in raised beds because we are
(06:15):
gardening below the level of thebed material we don't usually
have. The soil level in our raised
beds reach all the way up to thetop right.
Just like in a pot or a container, the soil usually sits
several inches below the lip, sohaving good airflow means those
(06:35):
leaves dry faster because wet foliage always equals a higher
risk for bacterial or fungal diseases.
So we need to space our plants appropriately and support those
vining crops up off of the soil so that we can increase that air
movement when the leaves dry quickly, especially after rain
(06:57):
or maybe overhead irrigation. A lot of these diseases can
never get a foothold if those leaves are nice and dry.
This means giving those plants some elbow room and helping them
to grow up and not out. So trellising is a really great
way to create that airflow for those plants that climb.
So this means trellising or caging our tomatoes and our
(07:20):
cucumbers, right? So if we can set those tomatoes
about 18 inches to two feet apart, either in cages or a long
trellis, and then clip those lower leaves so that nothing is
touching the soil, that is goingto be beneficial for airflow.
Same idea for cucumbers, train them up a trellis.
I found a really significant difference this year between my
(07:44):
different beds in how well my cucumbers performed with a
trellis versus without. The cucumbers that were growing
up, the trellis definitely produced better.
The fruits were just better, right?
They had fewer fungal diseases and the fruits were up off the
soil, so they were less open to predation by the pill bugs,
(08:07):
which I had a really big problemwith this year.
I was also able to grow more plants in that same space
because they weren't crawling across the soil.
They were growing up, which meant I was able to space the
cucumbers only about 6 inches apart across each of those
trellises. Where the beds?
(08:28):
Where they just sprawled across the bed.
Those plants had to be spaced atleast a foot apart, if not more,
to prevent them from overcrowding.
That is twice as many cucumber plants.
Plus that gave me room to plant things at the base of that
trellis to fill the rest of the bed.
Pull beans, same thing. Give them something to good to
(08:49):
climb up for airflow and then you can plant something else in
the remainder of that bed. Some other spacing would be
using Bush beans, doing Bush beans at about four inches
apart, Peppers can be just about8 to 12 inches apart if you're
staking them. Peppers like to hold hands a
little bit and staking them keeps them upright when they
(09:10):
start to get really heavy with the fruit so they're not falling
all over each other. And it also gives you some more
room to sort of plant in and around those plants.
Things like kale where you know,if you're planning on growing
them across the entire season instead of just as a spring
crop, you're likely going to be harvesting them the outer leaves
first, right? Which means they're going to
(09:31):
create this stock and then you're going to be harvesting
from the bottom. As the plant grows up, they're
going to kind of create their own airflow naturally at that
point. So it's okay to space them where
the leaves might be touching each other.
So 6 to 8 inches apart is going to be fine because again,
they're sort of naturally going to be lifting themselves up off
the ground. Broccoli, on the other hand,
(09:54):
gets really big and really leafyand it definitely needs that air
flow. So it really is best to space
broccoli plants about 18 inches apart all the way around.
Now that is going to seem like ahuge amount of space between
those plants when they're littleand we first transplant them,
(10:17):
but we'll minimize that wasted space.
When we talk about interplanting, just keep in mind
when we're planting our spacing,we're thinking about the mature
size of the plant prior to harvest and the the broccoli
plants get really big and then they're also in the bed for an
extended period of time. If you look on the seed packet
(10:38):
and the spacing just doesn't seem to make sense to you
because it's either hard to visualize what the mature plants
will look like or just doesn't seem right to you in your
garden. You're not alone.
OK. A lot of the spacing
recommendations that are put onto seed packets are actually
based on best performances on a commercial scale.
(10:59):
So this means, you know, workingin beds that are generally 36 to
48 inches wide with like an 18 inch spacing in between the
rows, because that's the size ofa tractor tire, right?
And the spacing is designed for harvesting equipment or
irrigation systems or whatever. It's not generally spaced
specifically for home gardening,honestly, just because there
(11:23):
aren't a lot of studies going onto see what works best in the
home garden. So, you know, plant breeders are
more interested in what's going on in terms of the commercial
guys. And then we have to learn by
doing and practicing and trial and error and by just asking
people who have done it before us.
So if you want a really good guide to start with when you're
(11:46):
learning how to sort of grow in this block mentality within your
raised beds, then you can start by following the square foot
gardening method, the one that was made famous by Mel
Bartholomew. Sorry.
You know, Gardner Scott and I talked about this last week
about Mel's mix. We talked about it, you know,
(12:06):
during the episode on filling the raised beds.
But essentially he sort of spearheaded this idea of the
number of plants that you can fit into a 12 by 12 space and
then working through your gardenin that type of a grit.
So it's going to give you a really good idea of what will
fit into a 12 inch by 12 inch section of your bed, or two of
(12:27):
those sections if you're growingsomething that needs a lot of
leaf space, like that broccoli, right?
This is a really good starting point.
I put together a download for you that has a chart of over 50
different plants and the recommended number of those
plants that you can put into 112by 12 square section of your
(12:48):
bed. It is very, very helpful when
you're sitting down and trying to layout your garden.
So I will link to that in the show notes for you.
This is what I mean by planting in a grid and not in rows.
Whether you use that chart or just you plant based on the
recommended spacing on the packet, whatever it is, think in
terms of space around the plant,not space in a row.
(13:15):
So like, instead of placing yourBush beans 4 inches apart in
rows that are 12 inches apart, we're just going to group them 4
inches apart from each other in a solid block in one part of the
bed or the entire bed, whatever you need.
Then we can fill in the rest of the bed with other crops, or we
(13:39):
can plant them in alternating blocks throughout the bed so
that we're not creating a littlemini monoculture in the bed that
attracts the insects that want to eat those plants, right?
This is a form of interplanting,alternating the plants that
you're growing, making sure to choose plants from different
plant families. So it's confusing the insects.
(14:00):
Now, if we're looking at things that don't trellis and that do
tend to take up a lot of space in the bed for an extended
period of time, how do we fit more plants in without causing
airflow and fungal issues? That's where we look at
combining interplanting and succession planting.
That's next. I wanted to give one more really
(14:24):
big thank you to Planter Box Direct for sponsoring this
month's series on raised bed gardening.
It's the support of companies like them that eases a little
bit of the financial burden on creating this show and I love
shouting out companies whose product I use in my day-to-day
life. Planter Box Direct's planters
have become my go to when replacing old beds or adding new
(14:48):
garden space to our farm and I happily share that with just
just about every gardener I meetwho is looking for high quality
materials that last a lifetime but also look good in the
garden. If you've not gone to check out
all their color and configuration options, I highly
encourage you to take a look at planterboxdirect.com once you've
(15:08):
decided on your new raised planter because you are going to
love the way they look. Use the special code Just Grow
20 Now through October 15th to save 20% and also get free
shipping during this special series.
Find my favorite raised plantersat Planter Box direct.com and
use code Just Grow 20 for significant savings now through
(15:30):
October 15th. The link is in the show notes.
OK, now let's make our one raised bed do multiple jobs
using interplanting and succession planting.
First off, what's the differencebetween the two?
Interplanting is otherwise knownas intercropping in commercial
farming. Basically just pairs crops with
(15:51):
different maturities and different sizes or different
root depths in order to make themost efficient use of the
available light and the space, right?
So think about using things likeradishes and leaf lettuces that
are pretty fast maturing crops in between things that are
slower to mature, like Peppers or tomatoes, right?
Succession planting gives us theability to continue harvesting
(16:14):
across the entire season so thatwe don't have gaps in our
harvest. And we're doing this by planting
the same crop multiple times at specific intervals.
So the great thing about combining these techniques in
raised planters is that by usingblocking or square foot layout
in the bed, it makes it easier to design our inter planting and
(16:39):
schedule our succession plantings.
Because we have equal spacing inall directions, we're not
worried about row spaces interrupting the pattern.
So not only are we fitting more into the same space, but we have
more control over it because it's more confined.
This also means that we're preventing a little mini
monoculture from happening. So not only is it more
(17:02):
efficient, a more efficient use of space, but it also confuses
the pest, specifically if we areinterplanting different plant
families. So let's take our broccoli as
the example, OK? Broccoli takes up a lot of space
at its mature size, and it generally stays in the bed for
upwards of 60 days if you're transplanting from seedling, 90
(17:24):
days if you're sowing it directly in the bed from seed.
That's a long time for one crop to take up that much space,
depending on the number of headsof broccoli that you want to
harvest, right? If you have a standard variety
that produces a head that's between like 4 and 8 inches
across, then that leaf span is going to be anywhere from 12 to
(17:45):
24 inches across and about 18 to24 inches tall.
That's a big plant, but like we mentioned before, those plants
are pretty small when they firststart out, and they take about a
month or so to really start thatlarge leaf spread.
So we can interplant something else between those broccoli
(18:05):
plants to take advantage of thatopen space while it's available.
So if our broccoli are spaced 18inches apart in our grid, we can
look at what might fit in between those spaces
temporarily, something that can be to maturity and harvested in
about 30 to 45 days before the broccoli crowds it out, right.
(18:29):
So if we go and look at our chart and we see, OK, what can
be planted in those 12 by 12 spaces, and we find we have room
for that will mature quickly. Why does this work?
Because if we have two broccoli plants that are spaced 18 inches
apart, that's 36 inches, that's three of our 12 by 12 squares.
(18:50):
So in the beginning stages, if our broccoli is centered in one
square each and they're really small and there's one square
between them, we have that one square where we can put
something temporarily until the broccoli takes over.
So what matures in 30 to 45 daysthat grows in the same weather
conditions, those cooler days that broccoli does that is not
(19:12):
in the same plant family. Radishes, leaf lettuce, baby
spinach, these are all things that can fit into that space
between the broccoli get to maturity before the broccoli
takes over and they are in different plant families.
So we get to confuse those pests.
So if we have a four foot by 8 foot bed and we only use half of
(19:34):
that bed for our broccoli and weuse the spaces between the
broccoli for those other quick growing crops, we can fit 8
heads of broccoli. Plus, if we look at that chart,
16 leaf lettuces per square foot, 9 spinach plants that we
can harvest as baby leaf, or we can broadcast seed the spinach
and cover the entire square footand then 16 radishes per square
(19:57):
foot. So in the other air, 8 square
feet that are initially not taken up by the broccoli.
We can grow 48 radishes, 32 leaflettuce plants and 27 spinach
plants or whatever other combination you want and still
have 16 square foot of space in that same bed to grow something
else. So you're going to have some
(20:18):
killer lettuce and spinach and radish salads in the weeks
leading up to your broccoli harvest.
Those plants are going to be outof the way for the final couple
of weeks that it takes the broccoli to get to maturity.
And then as you start harvestingthat broccoli, you can pull
those plants, amend the soil, and plant another crop.
Now, what if you don't want all of that lettuce and spinach and
(20:42):
radishes to come to maturity allat the same time?
That's a lot of salad to eat allat once, and then you've got
nothing for the couple of weeks while you wait for your
broccoli. That is where the succession
planting comes in, right? Some of the plants that we grow
give us a pretty continual harvest up until the 1st fall
(21:03):
frost. So things like your
indeterminate tomatoes and Peppers and eggplant and pole
beans, these all continue to produce basically until they
can't. But most of our other crops are
either one and done, like broccoli or cabbage or head
lettuces or our carrots and beets.
Or maybe they only produce for afew weeks before they've just
given their all and then they'redone.
(21:25):
So like our Bush beans or our sugar snap peas.
Or if you're doing come again crops like lettuce or spinach
that eventually can't handle theheat, right.
So if we want salads the whole spring into the early summer,
then we have to plant those crops in succession so we don't
get them all at once. This means one of two things.
(21:46):
We either plant the same crop ina different spot every two to
three weeks and that staggers the harvest, or we plant
different varieties of that cropthat have differing maturity
dates all at the same time to stagger the harvest.
So if we have a whole other 16 square feet in that garden bed
(22:08):
that's not being taken up by ourbroccoli, then we can use that
for succession plantings of things that we want to eat over
a longer period of time. And then we can inter plant
those crops to transition from one season to another.
OK. And again, because we are
planting in our raised beds in agrid, this is super easy to plan
(22:32):
by laying it out on graph paper and just marking some dates so
that we know how long each thingis in place.
Can we do all of this in a raised bed or in an in ground
bed instead of a raised bed? Yeah, absolutely.
But it tends to need some more adjustment because we have to
consider the edges of those bedsand where the plants may spill
(22:53):
over into our walkways. So it's doable.
It's absolutely how I plan my beds, and it's how I teach my
students in my plan, like a pro course, but it takes some
practice. I find doing this in a raised
bed is almost foolproof from thestart.
If we're always considering the mature size of the plant and how
(23:15):
long the plant remains in place,then we're usually going to be
OK. And we're pairing that high,
low, fast, slow, right? And remember I said that after
we pull that broccoli, we're going to amend and then we're
going to plant something new, right?
This is another type of a succession planting that we
refer to as relay planting. SO1 crop follows another follows
(23:39):
another based on the season. So if you plan this all out on a
grid ahead of time, there will be no gaps in your harvest and
there will be no gaps in your bed where the soil is exposed
and not being productive. Now, Speaking of soil exposure,
coming up, we're going to talk about one of my favorite
subjects, mulch, and how it helps us control weeds and
(24:03):
disease in the raised bed, but also how it can help us to
manage the moisture level and the soil temperature in our
raised beds. That's next.
Mulch is your bed's security blanket.
A2 to three inch layer of clean straw or shredded leaves or
(24:24):
dried grass clippings. Unsprayed grass clippings,
please and thank you, is going to block the new weeds from
blowing in and taking hold. It's going to stop any muddy
rain splash that spreads diseases from the soil up onto
the plant leaves. So this is going to further
protect us against the fungal and bacterial diseases, right?
(24:44):
But mulch is also going to help us conserve that soil moisture.
You know, sometimes despite our best efforts, the composition of
our soil in our raised bed mightdrain a little too quickly for
our liking. If this is happening, you likely
need to add some more organic material to the bed in the
offseason. But in the meantime, a heavy
(25:05):
layer of mulch is going to slow the rate at which the water
soaks into the bed. And it's going to protect the
soil surface from the drying effect of the sun's rays, which
will help you retain whatever moisture doesn't drain from the
soil. It's also going to help you with
temperature control of the soil because there is a smaller
volume of soil in a raised bed than in the ground.
(25:26):
Obviously the bed is going to tend to heat up sooner in the
spring, and we like that. But that also means that the
soil temperature can fluctuate dramatically if your
temperatures swing widely in thespring like they tend to here.
So if you can add a good layer of mulch after the soil has
initially warmed in the spring, then it's going to help to
(25:48):
mitigate some of those swings asit remains in place.
It's going to actually have the opposite effect in the summer
months. So if it's a light colored mulch
like straw, it's going to absorbfewer of the sun's rays and that
means keeping the root zone of the crops cooler as the
temperatures heat up. This is going to prevent those
(26:09):
late spring crops that get harvested in the early summer,
like beets or carrots from bolting prematurely because the
temperatures got super hot before they were ready to
harvest. And then bonus organic mulches
slowly add organic matter as they breakdown.
So by the end of the season, youcan just add a good layer of
(26:29):
compost and some source of nitrogen right on top of your
mulch and then put some more mulch on top.
And it's going to incorporate that under layer as organic
matter over the winter time. And it's going to be ready to
plant into into the spring. And it's also going to increase
your biomass. It is a win, win, win all the
way around. Just keep the mulch pulled back
(26:49):
a little bit from the base of the plants by an inch or two and
you are golden. OK, so let's bring this whole
plan together, right? Picture this with me.
Along the north edge of our 4 by8 bed, we put a sturdy trellis
that will eventually hold 4 tomato plants about 18 inches
apart. In the spring we use that tomato
(27:11):
space twice by sowing a quick crop of radishes in blocks in
between head lettuces to start with, and then we're going to
plant those tomatoes in between the lettuces.
When the soil temperature and the day temperatures are right
for planting tomatoes, the radishes and the lettuce will be
out of the way before the tomatoes need the elbow room.
(27:32):
At that point you could plant whole beans along that trellis
to fill in the space between thetomatoes.
Now to the east side of the bed we can do another short little
trellis for some sugar snap peasin the spring, and these can
give way to Bush beans in two week waves for most of the rest
of the season. The center of the bed basically
(27:55):
starts as salad central. We'll start with several blocks
of carrots and beets and greens sewn about two weeks apart.
These can give way to summer squashes in the center of the
bed. As the season warms.
Those squashes can produce all summer but then be pulled in the
late summer or early fall to give way for more salad greens
(28:19):
and carrots and beets for the fall while the tomatoes stay in
place as we plant more lettuces under them, protected from the
heat of the lay summer giving way to a fall crop.
Now the front edge of that bed can be planted to onions in the
early spring that are harvested in the early summer with a relay
(28:39):
crop of basil and parsley replacing them.
And that takes us all the way through until the 1st frost.
We can even squeeze some extra goodies into the corners and the
edges like zinnias, calendula, dills, cilantro, thyme, all
things that complement what we're growing.
These are going to feed pollinators and the tiny little
beneficials that eat the aphids and the caterpillars while also
(29:01):
contributing to our harvests is keep the taller flowers to the
bed corners or the north edge soyou don't shade the other plants
and you're good to go. Add a 2 to 3 inch blanket of
mulch everywhere in the bed to hold in moisture, regulate the
soil temperature and keep those plant leaves clean and you are
all set. This is a tremendous amount of
(29:23):
food from one single 4 by 8 bed.Let's add it up across the
entire season. In the spring, we're looking at
64 radishes, 16 heads of lettuce, 20 lbs.
Of leaf lettuce, 5 lbs. Of spinach, 3 lbs of arugula, 2
large bok choy or 8 little baby bok choy, 64 carats, 27 beets,
(29:44):
and 6 lbs of sugar snap peas. As we transition into the
summer, those relay plantings can yield up to 80 lbs of
tomatoes, 35 lbs of pole beans, 20 lbs.
Of Bush beans, 40 lbs. Of zucchini or yellow squash or
specialty summer squashes, 63 onions, plus a bounty of basil
and parsley through the summer. Which leads us into our fall
(30:07):
harvest of another 16 heads of lettuce, 30 lbs.
Of leaf lettuce, 32 carats, 18 beads, plus all the other herbs
and flowers you could be harvesting along the edges.
And we didn't even talk about the the succession planting that
you could do for things like kale and spinach and carrots
that can get to maturity before the 1st frost and be harvested
(30:29):
through the winter in a lot of areas for additional harvests.
I'm going to say it again, that is a tremendous amount of food
from 1/4 by 8 foot bed. Now of course this depends on
your climate, how long your growing season is, and the
fertility of your soil. But I actually underestimated
(30:50):
some of the yield on these things.
So even if you only harvested half of what I mentioned, you
would have gotten over 200 lbs of produce from that bed.
And if that sounds ridiculous, Ican confirm that my 4x4 beds
this year have averaged about 150 lbs of produce from each bed
(31:14):
due to inter plantings and succession plantings.
And that's without amending thempart way through the season as I
change crops. So yes, that number tracks.
OK, so tips for planning your raised bed?
Plan the box to be 3 to 4 foot wide, however long you want it
(31:35):
to be. Put your trellises on the north
and maybe temporarily on the east, and plan your garden space
out on a grid. Make sure that you're spacing
your plants for airflow. So trellis, those vining crops
don't handle any wet foliage, please.
And use the grid to plan how many plants per section so
they're not interfering with each other.
(31:56):
We're concerned about size at maturity and the amount of time
that they spend in the bed. Use your interplanting high,
low, fast, slow, right, tall plants with short ones, fast
maturing crops with the slow ones.
Stack the timing and the height of your plants and then do your
six sessions, small sowings everyone to two weeks.
Relay those new crops in as the other ones finish.
(32:18):
Mulch everything with a 2 to 3 inch depth of straw or leaves or
clippings. This is going to save your
water. It's going to block weeds.
It's going to reduce that disease.
Splash and modify those temperatures and then add in
your flowers and your herbs at the edges for season long blooms
and even more support for beneficial insects.
Just mind your height and your airflow.
(32:39):
I will leave that link to that chart to download that tells you
how many plants you can put in each 12 by 12 space in your
raised bed. I really hope that this series
has convinced you how effective growing in raised beds can be.
If you have fantastic soil whereyou garden and the in ground
(33:00):
beds allow you to grow what you need in the space that you have
them, no harm, no foul. Keep doing what you're doing,
but if you struggle at all with soil fertility or perennial
weeds, the space needed to grow what it is that you want to
grow, water retention, whatever,I absolutely encourage you to
try just one raised bed for nextseason.
(33:23):
Get it set up now. Get it filled in, let it mellow
over the winter while you grab your grid paper or your
spreadsheet and you lay out the garden in the most efficient
manner that you can. You will be blown away by the
results. Until next time, my gardening
friends, keep on cultivating that dream garden, and we'll
talk again soon.
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