September 23, 2025 • 41 mins
All this month we've been talking about creating new raised beds, what materials to use, and how to fill them. So, I thought it would be fitting to have on an expert on the subject.
Scott Wilson, otherwise known as Gardener Scott on YouTube, has been building and growing in raised beds for two decades and has taught others to do the same as both a Master Gardener and a garden educator. His new book, Gardener Scott's Guide to Raised Bed Gardening, is a step-by-step guide to planning, building and maintaining raised beds.
So, today on Just Grow Something, Scott shares his extensive knowledge with us including creating your own soil mix, compost, cost-effective and creative ways to create new raised beds and more. Let's dig in!
Get your new raised garden bed from PlanterBoxDirect.com using code JUSTGROW20 and save 20% and get free shipping, now through October 15th!
Get Scott's Book here: https://amzn.to/3Kgxw4T
Follow Scott on YouTube: Gardener Scott
Get the full show notes and transcript at https://justgrowsomethingpodcast.com/episode/raised-bed-gardening-with-gardener-scott-ep-268
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I mean, I was a raised bed gardener for about 20 years
before I built my first stone bed, and now that's all I wanna
do. All I wanna do is just design
new stone beds with new stones and new heights and new shapes.
That is Scott Wilson. You may know him.
From his YouTube channel Gardner.
Scott which has over 460,000 subscribers.
(00:22):
He is a master gardener and educator and the author of the
new book Gardner Scott's Guide to Raised Bed Gardening.
I read the book and it is a comprehensive step by step guide
to planning, building and maintaining raised beds with a
focus on soil health, sustainable practices, and
maximizing yields in various spaces.
(00:43):
And since Scott's approach aligns with my mission to
provide evidence based gardeningtechniques to you, I thought
that he would make the perfect guest for this month's.
Special. Series on raised bed gardens So
today on Just Grow Something, Scott shares his extensive
knowledge on raised bed gardening, including the
importance of creating your own soil mix and the benefits of
(01:04):
using raised beds. We talked about the significance
of compost, cost effective ways to build raised beds, and the
process of becoming a master gardener.
We also touch on planning and planting strategies as well as
the potential for growing a variety of plants beyond
vegetables. Let's dig in, Aaron.
And what started as a small backyard garden 20 years ago
(01:25):
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 andbuild confidence in your own
garden space. So grab your garden journal and
a cup of coffee and get ready tojust grow something.
(01:48):
You garden in Colorado, it's zone 5B, right?
And your soil there is interesting.
Let's. Let's terrible you can.
You can say it's just flat out terrible.
So is that what led you to decide that, you know, raised
beds might be the way to go? Yeah, that was that was a big
(02:10):
defining factor. I had dabbled in gardening for a
while, and a little over 20 years ago I became a master
gardener and really didn't know much about raised beds until
then and realized that all the struggles I had in the terrible
Colorado soil could be solved byjust putting in raised beds and
creating a good soil mix. And it definitely changed the
(02:34):
way I garden. What kind of struggles are we
talking about in terms of the inground?
Oh, and so I I recommend to to anyone that asks to do a soil
test when you're first starting a garden just to establish a
baseline. And my native soil has less than
1% organic matter. Almost immeasurable.
(02:58):
Soil testing. Sound familiar?
Testing the amount of organic matter in the soil is done
through a university extension soil test.
This isn't something that you'reoff the shelf kit can measure.
That is focusing mostly on nitrogen, phosphorus, and
potassium along with the soil pH.
This is something that you need to send away to have tested now.
(03:20):
The ideal level of organic matter for soil is 5%, so less
than 1% meant Scott was gardening and essentially just
dirt, or in his case, sand. And it is primarily sand and it
is actually a compacted sand. So for me to grow in it in any
(03:43):
expected success rate requires alot of amending over a lot of
years, and even then it's marginal.
And so the gardeners I know in my area who grow in the ground
are always struggling because they just don't add enough
organic matter. And in a raised bed started
right off with a good percentageof organic matter.
(04:06):
And since then I've learned about designing my own soils and
creating my own soils and using different soils for different
types of plants. And I can do all of that in my
raised pads. So in terms of somebody who is
wanting to create their own soilin their raised bed, you said
you've experimented and you've learned a lot over the years
(04:27):
about what the component should be and how you can modify that
based on what it is that you're growing.
Let's start with. What would be considered like a
just a basic way for somebody tobe able to fill a brand new
raised bed? What would you recommend in
terms of the composition of thatand what materials they should
(04:47):
use? So the basic soil should
actually be soil. And Mel Bartholomew in his book
about square foot gardening and Mel's mix is it's really a soil
less mix. There doesn't have the the
natural native mineral based soil.
And so a lot of gardeners think that a potting mix is all you
(05:10):
need or you put together perliteand peat Moss and that's all you
need. That mineral component really is
important. And I don't like to spend a lot
of money and I don't encourage people to spend a lot of money
so they can use their native soil, which has minerals, which
has some modicum of, of nutrients in it and then add
(05:34):
organic matter to that. A good soil that you've probably
probably seen the the wheel thattells that a soil is 25% air and
25% water and 45% of that mineral soil.
And you only need 5% of it beingorganic matter.
(05:56):
Now that that's by mass, that's not by volume.
So it really ends up being generally about 20 to 30% by
volume of organic matter. And compost is what everybody
recommends. And I agree with that because
compost already has nutrients that are available for the
(06:16):
plants. A good compost will actually
continue to decompose a little bit and release even more
nutrients for plants. And so it's as simple as that,
just taking your own native soiland mix in a lot of compost and
you can get started. Now I in my book, I talk about
that if you don't have compost, if you don't want to buy
(06:39):
compost, you're not familiar with the source of your compost,
then any organic matter will actually work.
So I use dried grass clippings, I use crushed leaves, I use
whatever organic matter I have. Remember what we talked about
last week about how to fill a raised garden bed?
Here we have another gardening expert outside of the university
(07:02):
system talking about using leaves and all kinds of other
types of organic matter to fill our beds.
We really do not need to be relying strictly on compost for
this. And so when I said, you know, I,
I have learned to build my own soils and I experiment a little
bit with that, it's because if I'm filling a bed in fall, it's
(07:24):
probably going to have a higher percentage of dried leaves,
crushed leaves. If I'm filling a bed in late
spring or summer, it's probably going to have a higher
percentage of dried grass clippings or even fresh grass
clippings that are mixed into it.
And so I have dozens of beds, and every bed has a different
(07:45):
soil composition based on what materials were available when I
filled it. And I don't think we can
overlook the fact that your native soil is going to have a
lot of the microbes that are native to your area that are
going to be able to help inoculate that compost,
especially if it's sort of brandnew finished compost in that
(08:07):
bed. When it comes to the building of
a raised bed. And I, you know, we've done it
six ways this Sunday. It's been leftover materials,
it's been cinder block, it's been, you know, here recently.
I've got a company that I work with whose beds that I love and
it's like shipping to me. And it's US Steel that I can all
put together, which is fantastic.
(08:28):
But one of the things that gardeners over the years have
been told not to do is to use treated lumber.
And as an OSU alumni, I will. I love the fact that Oregon
State University came out with astudy that said not really.
Can you talk about that study a little bit and kind of ease
(08:50):
everybody's minds? Absolutely.
In fact, I was actually part of that study.
So I, I worked with the Oregon State University team and like
like you said, I've got concreteblock beds, I've got metal beds,
I've got wood beds. And, and some of the team had
actually watched some of my videos on YouTube and saw that
some of my beds were made with pressure treated wood.
(09:12):
Some of my beds were untreated wood, Some of my beds had the
lower half untreated and the upper half treated.
I was trying all kinds of different combinations so that
I, I could, at least within my garden, point out to everybody
that the plants will do just fine regardless of how you're
using it. And I actually took soil samples
(09:32):
of all of my beds and sent them to Oregon State University as
part of that study. And what they found out was you
can use pressure treated wood all day long and not worry about
it. There is a minimal amount of
copper leaching because the the pressure treatments in the woods
(09:53):
that are available to us now areall copper based, but so minimal
that it had no impact on the plants.
And it's it's nothing to worry about anymore. 30 years ago when
the pressure treated woods were using an arsenic compound, then
yes, that was something to be concerned with.
(10:14):
And not so much because of the plants, but because if you are
working with wood that has arsenic in it and you're not
wearing gloves, it could be a problem.
But even with the the copper azole and all the other copper
based chemicals that they're using now, you can do it with
your bare hands. I, I use gloves just because I
(10:35):
don't want splinters when I'm doing the the bed.
But pressure treated wood is perfectly fine in the home
garden. So, you know, when people have
come and they have a concern about, OK, how much is it going
to cost me to do this? What is the least expensive way
for me to do this? Do you have recommendations for
them? Well, the least expensive way is
(10:55):
exactly what you said. I've got beds that I constructed
with reclaimed wood that cost nothing, literally nothing
because the wood was free, had abunch of nails just lying around
and I nailed the boards togetherand built a bed.
So that by far is the most cost effective way to make a bed.
You can also make a bed and it doesn't have to be wood.
(11:17):
You can stack stones, you can use whatever materials you have.
A raised bed is simply just an elevated area that we are
growing plants in and so the cheapest by far and very little
work is not even a half edging around it.
If you do like a Hugo culture mound, that's a raised bed and
(11:39):
you can actually grow in a moundof amended soil.
So that's that's one end of the spectrum where you can have
raised beds without spending anymoney whatsoever.
If you want to go into the mode of building the rectangular box,
which one of the huge advantagesto that is when you plan your
(12:00):
garden, you can in the cold of winter, set your little grid
paper and figure out where you're going to put your plans
and how many are going to fit inthe bed.
And that works perfectly with a rectangular box that's four feet
wide and eight feet long. And that's what you go to Home
Depot and Lowe's and buy 8 foot long boards.
(12:20):
You can make a bed like that. So Next up on that spectrum is
buying untreated wood that will cost you the least amount of
money. But as you pointed out,
depending on your climate, you might have to replace it in five
or six years. I'm at the six year point for my
untreated beds, but it's very dry here in Colorado.
(12:43):
And so I, I've got at least three more, maybe four more
years in those beds without any problem whatsoever.
Probably about 25 to 30% more incost is pressure treated wood.
And you can expect that to probably last twice as long.
And then as you continue moving up the spectrum, you can get
(13:04):
into concrete blocks or bricks or I've, I've made some beds
this last year that I just absolutely love with flagstone.
Now Flagstone is not cheap when you buy it in the quantity that
you need to build a raised bed, but it's going to last forever
and I will never need to replaceany of those components.
(13:25):
So there's there's for the most part, a pretty direct
correlation to the cost and how long the bed is going to last.
One of the things that I found in your book, there was a
picture of a spiral. Herb.
Garden that was just these stones that spiral and now I am
fat. I am determined to build one of
(13:47):
those here. I thought that was just the
coolest design. And it just goes to show, you
know, it doesn't have to be linear thinking.
It doesn't have to be. We're going to make it 4 by 8
and every single one is going tobe 4 by 8.
And there's going to be exactly 18 inches in between each path
or 36 inches or whatever it is. You can be as linear and as
(14:11):
organized and you know, point topoint as you want to be, or you
can be as whimsical as you want to be in your garden with raised
beds. They don't have to be 1
particular type. OK, coming up, Scott and I talk
about working with new compost, soil management, and the process
of becoming a master gardener, which was something I was
(14:32):
completely unfamiliar with, but I get asked about a lot.
Everything that Gardner Scott istalking about in this episode is
true of raised beds and my favorite raised planters come
from Planter Box Direct. You get your choice of colors,
sizes, dimensions, even tiered planters and planters on legs to
(14:52):
fit every garden space. They're simple to put together,
but they're designed to last a lifetime and they are my go to
when designing any new space around my gardens.
Through October 15th, you can save 20% and get free shipping
on these USA made steel beds at Planter Box direct.com.
Use code Just Grow 20 in honor of this special raised bed
(15:15):
series. And you'll have your own new
planter beds in time to build them and fill them this fall so
they'll be ready to plant in thespring.
Planter Box direct.com with codeJust grow 20.
The link is in the show notes. When when you talk about
compost, using compost for raised beds, one of the things
(15:35):
that I have encountered with folks who have no way to really
create their own compost, or at least not in the volume.
That they prefer in. Terms of having to purchase
compost to bring it in, one of the things that I have
encountered is when people are building new raised beds and
they get this idea of, oh, it's spring.
It's time for me to build my beds and I'm going to bring in
(15:58):
this truckload of compost. And then they're going to fill
the bed in its entirety with this brand new compost.
And then they find out that their stuff is not growing.
And you know, I, I see the frustration because they don't
understand why that is. Can you speak to that a little
(16:18):
bit? Yeah.
So, so compost is organic matterthat is in various stages of
decomposition. And depending on where you get
your compost from, it might actually be sterile.
And a lot of the major manufacturers will sterilize the
mix so that it stops decomposing.
(16:41):
Well, it's the life in our soil and it's the life in our compost
that makes the nutrients available to the plants.
And so plants don't grow in a sterile environment.
It can be the most amazing compost in the world.
But if you don't have that microbial activity and that
fungal activity within the soil,the plant is going to starve.
(17:05):
It can't, it literally can't access all those nutrients.
And so, yeah, by all means get the the compost by the
truckload, but what I recommend is you do that in fall because
you put the compost in your bedsin fall.
Now you have all of the autumn months and the winter months and
(17:26):
the early spring months for thatsoil life to populate that bed
and make all those nutrients available to your plants.
I love it when somebody else preaches this besides me.
That way they can hear it from somebody else.
So, you know, talk to me about becoming a Master Gardener
(17:48):
because I have a lot of people ask me about this and I am not a
Master Gardener. I, I have a degree in
horticulture from Oregon State, but I've never gone through, and
I've had Master Garden. I've gone to Master Gardener
meetings and I've done presentations and had them out
here, but I've never actually gone through the sort of course
curriculum that goes along with this.
Talk to me a little bit about that process because I've had
people ask me about what it takes.
(18:09):
Sure, And I I became a Colorado Master Gardener a little more
than 20 years ago, and the process has changed mildly.
And each state might have its own minor modifications, but the
basic process is that there is auniversity in every state that
overseas the Extension Service. And the extension office is the
(18:32):
one that overseas the Master Gardener program.
And so when you become a Master Gardener, you are actually doing
it under the auspices of some State University.
So here in Colorado, it's Colorado State University that
overseas the program. So when I went through, and
these were in the days long before the computer and the
(18:53):
Internet and YouTube even, it was actually instructors from
Colorado State University in thehorticultural department that
were doing most of the teaching.And the exposure to gardening is
quite broad. And so it's the way I typically
explain it to people is it's it's a weeks long program and
(19:19):
it's an all day class. So it might be Tuesdays or
Thursdays. I think we went on Thursdays.
And so in the morning for three hours you get non-stop education
on vegetable gardening. And then in the afternoon you
get 3 hours of non-stop instruction on fruit gardening.
(19:39):
And then the next week, you comeback and you might get 3 hours
in the morning on soil composition and then in the
afternoon after lunch, you get 3hours on compost and mulch.
And so that's the way the program tends to be laid out is
a very broad education without particular focus on anyone area.
(20:04):
And then after a couple months of classes, and so depending on
where you're going, it might be 8 or 12 weeks of these little
snippets. I think biology might have been.
One where like the morning was biology and the, the afternoon
was botany. So that was the closest we came
to a full day of the the same topic.
(20:26):
But you're, you're not an experton anything and you finish and
you have to take tests of coursealong the way.
And when you are done, you're still not a master gardener.
So that class is offered usuallyto the the green industry.
And so you have a lot of landscaping companies, for
(20:47):
instance, that might send their people to those classes.
To become a Master Gardener, youneed to go to the next level,
which is volunteering in the Master Gardener program for a
period of months. And that's where you really
begin that that expertise phase.Here in in Colorado Springs,
(21:11):
where I'm from and in most areas, there's a help desk or
there's some operation where theMaster Gardeners answer
questions. Well, the Master Gardeners that
are answering those questions are the Master Gardeners that
just finished the training for the most part.
So when they're asked a question, they might not know
the answer, and often they don'tknow the answer.
(21:31):
But what they've been taught as part of the Master Gardener
program is how to find the answer and to look in the fact
sheets that the Extension Service provides so that they
can answer about insects or flowers or soil or compost.
And that's really how you becomea Master Gardener.
(21:52):
You have to complete that volunteer phase before you get
the certification of Master Gardener, and then you have to
carry that on. If you want to maintain that
certification, you have to continue taking some classes and
you have to continue volunteering over a period of
time. That is fascinating.
(22:12):
I had no idea that Cass County Master Gardeners when they have
their, you know, their call in hour every week that those are
the brand new people who are answering those questions and
they're looking it up. That's that's fascinating.
But it's a long process. I mean, that's, it's some work.
It's not something that you can just, OK, you know, I'm just
going to decide to do this. You really need to have a
commitment, especially to maintain that certification.
(22:34):
So you continue to have to do continuing education every year
in order to sort of meet those qualifications to maintain in
your certificate. Yeah, basically it depends on,
it depends on the the respectiveMaster Gardener programs.
So there there's variety, you know, throughout the country and
Canada as well also has similar programs.
(22:56):
And so there's a key difference too, because when you become a
certified Master Gardener, if you choose to continue to, to be
certified, you don't have to know everything.
Master Gardeners tend to focus. And so most of the Master
Gardeners I know might be an expert on irises, or they might
be an expert on roses, or they might be an expert on compost.
(23:19):
There are very few like me who just love learning and love
gardening and try to learn everything possible about
gardening. And then you might reach a point
like I did, where I, I kind of outgrew the Master Gardener
program and the things that I was being taught were not new.
(23:39):
I, I knew much more than that. So while I'm a Master Gardener,
I'm no longer a certified MasterGardener because I stopped doing
the volunteer hours and the the continuing education.
I think you're doing enough, enough education on your own, I
don't think. You have to worry about.
The hours being tracked. And that's interesting.
(24:00):
I think, you know, sometimes, especially as somebody who is
predominantly a, a vegetable gardener, I'm just like dipping
my toe into messing with flowersbecause this is, I mean, this is
18 years of, of growing vegetables for the public.
And so my concern has always been production level and forget
if it looked pretty, forget if there was flowers out there, you
(24:21):
know, unless it was a native pollinator garden, that was
fine. I'm just now sort of dipping my
toe into roses and, you know, some other things.
But I think I always tend when somebody says gardener, I
automatically go to vegetables. So it's interesting that you're
like, oh, no, there's, you know,there's the Master Gardeners, a
lot of them. It's just about the flowers.
And I guess I have to remember that when people want to come do
(24:42):
a tour, when the Master Gardeners want to come do a tour
and they want to see what we're doing out here, They're they've
done the flowers, they haven't done the.
Vegetables Coming up, Scott and I talk about crop planning in
raised beds. Versus in ground?
Beds preventing fungal diseases.How watering requirements.
This may change a little when you control the composition of
the soil, and more that's next. You had mentioned you know the
(25:06):
ease of planning in raised beds.I am a planner through and
through. The 1st course I released was a
planning course. It wasn't the course that
anybody wanted, it was the course that I wanted to give
them because I am a planner and I agree with you.
Raised beds make it so easy to just sit down with a grid and be
(25:27):
able to space everything out beautifully.
Plan your inter plantings, plan your inter croppings.
What I have found is that sometimes, you know, I am I am
very much about hey, make take advantage of all the space you
possibly can and make sure that you are pairing these these
plants together. You know, I have a high, low,
fast, slow, kind of, you know, method where that's how you pair
(25:49):
everything together. So they complement each.
Other but I. Think in raised beds sometimes,
now maybe not where you are because the humidity level is
always so very low. In most instances, I have found
that because that soil level is just below the edge of the bed
itself that sometimes we worry alittle bit more about some
fungal diseases getting in therebecause there's less airflow
(26:11):
because it sort of gets trapped in there.
Do you have recommendations for people about properly spacing
your plants within the raised beds as they're planning versus
maybe how they would do it in anin ground bed?
Oh sure. And I luckily don't have many
issues because I am like you said, very low humidity and very
(26:34):
highwind. So most of my plants I have the
opposite problem. I have to worry about my beds
drying out too quickly. But but that's that's a very
important thing to be aware of. And and it does depend on the
plant because there are some plants that like higher
humidity. But if you live in an area with,
with high humidity and fungal diseases as part of normal
(26:57):
gardening, there's, there's two big things that I usually
recommend. The first being, of course,
pruning and taking off usually lower leaves in tomatoes.
That's the example that that is is so prevalent.
So you can get the air flow across the ground.
So it does dry out a little bit more and you don't have the the
(27:19):
likelihood of those fungal spores bouncing up onto the
leaves of your tomato plants. So selective pruning can make a
big difference. You can also get into trellising
where you you get the plants away from the ground.
Now you can also do this in in ground beds, but it's just so
easy in raised beds where you can build a trellis that fits
(27:41):
the bed perfectly. And then you grow up basically
away from that high humid environment that's all wet next
to that mulch on top of a wet soil and you let your plants
breathe, you let you let let theairflow go through the plants.
So those two things I think are very important and are often
(28:02):
overlooked by gardeners who havethose kind of fungal issues.
And then of course, with the up and with the pruning, you throw
in what you're talking about, which is ample spacing between
the plants. And the problem I see most often
is, is gardeners don't think about how big the plant is going
(28:23):
to be right about the time that they're wanting to harvest that
plant. And plants can get quite wide
and they can spread quite a bit.So you look at the seed packet
and it says space 12 inches apart.
Well, yeah, that's fine for probably most of the life of
that plant. But when that plant ends up
being 24 inches wide and you gottwo of them together, you've got
(28:47):
no airflow and you are creating the perfect environment for
fungal diseases and for pests that like to hide amongst the
branches as well. So the spacing does need to
account for what the plant is going to look like later.
And, and it's tough, I know you know this as well.
When the plants are young and they're so far apart, you, you
(29:08):
feel like you just got to stick something in there.
But but you could be asking for problem a few months down the
road. Yeah, My favorite trick is to
put something in there that is going to be harvested well
before that other plant gets to maturity.
So I mean, I'm infamous for, youknow, planting my tomato plants,
but also having lettuce or spinach or something underneath
it. That's.
Going to be. Totally done and out of the bed
(29:31):
by the time the tomatoes need that airflow.
I think. Too, what would you say about
the watering requirements for raised beds because I mean again
in your area it's super dry in most instances it's very windy.
Do you find that your raised raised beds dry out faster than
what you would see in like an inground bed and you have to
(29:52):
adjust your watering for that? So in my area, my in ground
Rembra was talking about how terrible the soil was and how
sandy it is and the water drainsright through it.
And so my raised beds, because there is more organic matter in
the beds, I actually do water less, not by much, but a little
bit less because the soil is retaining more water because of
(30:15):
that organic matter that's in it.
And then one of the things I didn't mention that when we were
talking about filling a raised bed.
But for my tall raised beds, thelower half is logs and branches
and wood chips and leaves to to fill U space.
And I don't have to pay for them, I just fill U that space.
(30:37):
But as those logs and branches and all that woody material
begins to decay, it just sucks up the moisture.
It's like putting in a little reservoir of water at the bottom
of my beds. And so that also helps moderate
the overall moisture level of the soil within my my beds.
(30:58):
OK. I want you to think about what
Scott just said. If you got distracted there for
a minute, go back and rewind andlisten again.
We talked last week about the layers in a raised bed when
we're filling them and about using those woody organic
materials, materials as one of the lower components, especially
when you are filling a very deepbed.
(31:19):
The concern sometimes is the breakdown of that material.
Is it going to steal nitrogen from our plants during that
breakdown process And that mightbe true.
If we are creating beds like this in the spring and using a
really large amount of carbon based materials and then
planting into the bed immediately, then yes, the
(31:40):
nitrogen that the plants need togrow.
Might. Be taken preferentially by the
microbes in the soil that need to use it to break down those
carbon materials. But if we are building these
beds in the fall and allowing the materials to settle in and
break down over the winter, thenusing those woody materials in
the bottom layers of the bed is not going to be a concern.
(32:02):
And as you heard, Scott, just say, this woody mass is actually
going to help the beds retain water as it decomposes.
So we're getting organic matter,we're getting nutrients and
we're getting water retention, all positives.
So I always test my soil on a regular basis.
(32:23):
I should do it daily, but I don't always do it daily because
other things get in the way. But just simply sticking your
finger in the soil to seeing howmoist, how moist it is.
And almost always here in Colorado, that top inch or two
inches is dry because of the lowhumidity and because of the wind
and because of the sun. But if you dig down 3 inches or
4 inches close to the root level, the soil might be
(32:47):
perfectly moist. And so that's how I water is
based on if the plant is gettingenough moisture where the roots
are and not so much if the top is dry or if the top is wet.
Raised beds do tend to dry out faster than an in ground bed,
all other things being equal, but you can moderate that by
(33:12):
making sure you have that extra organic matter.
Oh, I think that that's a huge, you know, plus to just one of
them to raise bed Gardening is again, that control over the
soil composition and being able to make sure that you have that
right amount of organic matter. And glad somebody else is
preaching the less frequent, more thorough waterings get down
(33:32):
there and that 4 inch mark to see whether or not they leave,
you know, they need that that moisture.
So I appreciate that viewpoint because again, if you're
controlling the soil, then you're you're controlling how
much moisture retention there, there is.
As I mentioned in the intro, Scott has literally written the
a book on raised bed gardening. His recent release, Gardner
Scott's Guide to Raised Bed Gardening, is exactly what it
(33:54):
sounds like, a down and dirty look at how to build raised
beds, build good soil, and how to plan for growing in those
beds. I was super excited.
I'm going to put that on the camera there to read this.
Talk to me about why you decidedthat your book was going to be
the guide to raised bed Gardening.
(34:16):
You mentioned that you and when you got started, nobody was
doing raised beds. There wasn't anything about it.
Was that part of the reason behind writing this?
Well, so that that was part of the reasoning.
Yes, absolutely. And I do talk a little bit about
that book. But when I was contacted by
Firefly Publishing and asked if I wanted to write a book, they
actually proposed a few subjectsand and I said I'd prefer to
(34:41):
write something that I really think I'm an expert on and that
others think I'm an expert on aswell.
Those other books, maybe you'll come at another time.
But it really was what what do Ido the most of?
What do I know the most about? And when I looked at my videos
on YouTube, I have more videos about raised beds than any other
(35:05):
video. My most popular video with with
over 4 million views, I think right now is about filling a
raised bed. So when I started looking at
what people are watching on YouTube, it it basically wrote
itself from that point on that yes, this book needs to be about
raised beds. I get more questions about
(35:28):
raised beds than anything else. And there's a lot of of, of
misconceptions, lack of awareness, and I think even for
people who garden in raised beds, And that's one, one thing
I wanted to put into the book iseven if you're a raised bed
gardener, there's so much more you can do with raised beds that
(35:51):
you might not even be aware of. Like you mentioned the herb
spiral, There's a lot out there that even experienced gardeners
can still learn and raise. Bed gardening.
Yeah. So what else?
What else do you think that people who have already been in
raised beds are already, you know, think they know everything
about what it is to do and raisebeds?
What are the other things that you think would take them by
(36:13):
surprise in terms of what they can do with their garden?
Well, you touched on it a littlebit earlier when you said that
get away from the linear thinking and start start looking
beyond what everybody else is doing.
You look at all the videos on YouTube and everybody's growing
in a four foot by 8 foot box. There are more and more people
that are starting to use the metal raised bed kits that you
(36:36):
alluded to. And beyond that, there isn't a
lot out there. I've I've got a bed on how to
how to make that cinder block raised bed.
And it's one of the few on YouTube that shows how to do it
because not many people are using cinder blocks.
And last year when I did my stone raised beds, I'm not
(36:57):
seeing a lot of other videos outthere with people making stone
raised beds. So that's that's it took me
years. I mean, I was a raised bed
gardener for about 20 years before I built my first stone
bed. And now that's all I want to do.
All I want to do is just design new stone beds with new stones
and new heights and new shapes. And my stone bed is, I have two
(37:21):
of them, actually. I use them as kind of anchor
points for an entry into my pollinator garden.
They are circular. You know, it's, it's basically
flagstone that has straight edges.
But I built the beds big enough and high enough that there's a
curve to them that just flows sonicely and it looks so nice.
(37:46):
And I'm using them for annuals and perennials.
They the the idea that vegetablegardening is how you garden when
you have a raised bed, that's another thing that not enough
gardeners are thinking about. You can grow some amazing plants
in raised beds that are outside of the the vegetable arena.
(38:08):
And so just expanding your mind to encompass the beauty,
potential beauty of a raised bedand the potential for new types
of plants in raised beds. That's that's what I'm really
hoping to encourage more gardeners to do.
Coming up, Scott digs deeper into the lessons he conveys for
gardeners in his book and the question that every beginning
(38:31):
gardener should be asking themselves before they begin.
Is there anything else that you that you wanted to point out
about you know your, your book, your YouTube channel, anything
else that you think people oughtto know?
Well, I, I wrote the book to be a, a primer for any gardener of
any level. And particularly if you are a
(38:52):
new gardener and you really aren't sure what to do.
Well, my book talks about askingthe most important questions
about gardening. You know why.
And I think you have to answer the why question before you
figure out where you're going toput your bed or what you're
going to grow in your raised bed.
(39:12):
So I, I ask a lot of those questions in the book or, or
encourage gardeners to ask themselves those kind of
questions. But then I talk a lot about
planning. I talk a lot about soil
development. I talk about plant selection.
I talk about the the climate andhow you match plants.
I talk about watering, I talk about trellises, I talk about
(39:35):
harvesting, I talk about the different seasons and what
activities are best in what timeof the year.
And so it's really intended to be a gardening book, it just
happens to have a focus on Ray'sbets.
I think you absolutely accomplished what you set out to
do. Anybody who has listened to this
(39:56):
podcast just listened to you sayall of that and went, huh, all
of that sounds really familiar. So now they understand why I
liked this book so much. So I appreciate you coming on.
Anybody who wants to find the book, I'm going to absolutely
link to that in the show notes. It's Gardner Scott on YouTube
and we will link to this. And I really appreciate you
(40:16):
being here today. Well, I'd loved being here with
you. I can talk gardening all day
long with anyone who wants to. And so I'm, I'm glad that today
it was you. I thoroughly enjoyed this
conversation with Scott about raised bed gardening and just
gardening in general. Like he said, at any time
(40:38):
gardeners get together we can talk for hours and hours about
anything gardening related. I will link to Scott's YouTube
channel and to the book in the show notes so you can check out
all of his stuff yourself. I truly believe raised bed
gardening is a fantastic way to grow, especially if you are
dealing with soil that is maybe less than ideal, which let's be
(40:59):
honest, that's probably about 7 75% of us.
Until next time, my gardening friends keep on cultivating
that. Dream Garden and we'll talk.
Again soon. But there was a lot that didn't
make it into the book. I had a lot more of the, you
know, this was me, this was my journey.
These are the things I like. And they said, no, this, you
(41:22):
can't have that in this book. This is we got to stick with the
information that is appropriate.And and so, you know, that's
that's All authors say the same thing.
You know, some of their best words are are cut out, but
that's all part of the process. It's.
Like, it's so difficult to be the writer and the editor.
It's like that. There's a reason you're not
(41:42):
supposed to be your own editor, because you believe everything
is. Exactly.
I mean, I was a raised bed gardener for about 20 years
before I built my first stone bed, and now that's all I wanna
do. All I wanna do is just design
new stone beds with new stones and new heights and new shapes.
That is Scott Wilson. You may know him.
From his YouTube channel Gardner.
Scott which has over 460,000 subscribers.
(00:22):
He is a master gardener and educator and the author of the
new book Gardner Scott's Guide to Raised Bed Gardening.
I read the book and it is a comprehensive step by step guide
to planning, building and maintaining raised beds with a
focus on soil health, sustainable practices, and
maximizing yields in various spaces.
(00:43):
And since Scott's approach aligns with my mission to
provide evidence based gardeningtechniques to you, I thought
that he would make the perfect guest for this month's.
Special. Series on raised bed gardens So
today on Just Grow Something, Scott shares his extensive
knowledge on raised bed gardening, including the
importance of creating your own soil mix and the benefits of
(01:04):
using raised beds. We talked about the significance
of compost, cost effective ways to build raised beds, and the
process of becoming a master gardener.
We also touch on planning and planting strategies as well as
the potential for growing a variety of plants beyond
vegetables. Let's dig in, Aaron.
And what started as a small backyard garden 20 years ago
(01:25):
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 andbuild confidence in your own
garden space. So grab your garden journal and
a cup of coffee and get ready tojust grow something.
(01:48):
You garden in Colorado, it's zone 5B, right?
And your soil there is interesting.
Let's. Let's terrible you can.
You can say it's just flat out terrible.
So is that what led you to decide that, you know, raised
beds might be the way to go? Yeah, that was that was a big
(02:10):
defining factor. I had dabbled in gardening for a
while, and a little over 20 years ago I became a master
gardener and really didn't know much about raised beds until
then and realized that all the struggles I had in the terrible
Colorado soil could be solved byjust putting in raised beds and
creating a good soil mix. And it definitely changed the
(02:34):
way I garden. What kind of struggles are we
talking about in terms of the inground?
Oh, and so I I recommend to to anyone that asks to do a soil
test when you're first starting a garden just to establish a
baseline. And my native soil has less than
1% organic matter. Almost immeasurable.
(02:58):
Soil testing. Sound familiar?
Testing the amount of organic matter in the soil is done
through a university extension soil test.
This isn't something that you'reoff the shelf kit can measure.
That is focusing mostly on nitrogen, phosphorus, and
potassium along with the soil pH.
This is something that you need to send away to have tested now.
(03:20):
The ideal level of organic matter for soil is 5%, so less
than 1% meant Scott was gardening and essentially just
dirt, or in his case, sand. And it is primarily sand and it
is actually a compacted sand. So for me to grow in it in any
(03:43):
expected success rate requires alot of amending over a lot of
years, and even then it's marginal.
And so the gardeners I know in my area who grow in the ground
are always struggling because they just don't add enough
organic matter. And in a raised bed started
right off with a good percentageof organic matter.
(04:06):
And since then I've learned about designing my own soils and
creating my own soils and using different soils for different
types of plants. And I can do all of that in my
raised pads. So in terms of somebody who is
wanting to create their own soilin their raised bed, you said
you've experimented and you've learned a lot over the years
(04:27):
about what the component should be and how you can modify that
based on what it is that you're growing.
Let's start with. What would be considered like a
just a basic way for somebody tobe able to fill a brand new
raised bed? What would you recommend in
terms of the composition of thatand what materials they should
(04:47):
use? So the basic soil should
actually be soil. And Mel Bartholomew in his book
about square foot gardening and Mel's mix is it's really a soil
less mix. There doesn't have the the
natural native mineral based soil.
And so a lot of gardeners think that a potting mix is all you
(05:10):
need or you put together perliteand peat Moss and that's all you
need. That mineral component really is
important. And I don't like to spend a lot
of money and I don't encourage people to spend a lot of money
so they can use their native soil, which has minerals, which
has some modicum of, of nutrients in it and then add
(05:34):
organic matter to that. A good soil that you've probably
probably seen the the wheel thattells that a soil is 25% air and
25% water and 45% of that mineral soil.
And you only need 5% of it beingorganic matter.
(05:56):
Now that that's by mass, that's not by volume.
So it really ends up being generally about 20 to 30% by
volume of organic matter. And compost is what everybody
recommends. And I agree with that because
compost already has nutrients that are available for the
(06:16):
plants. A good compost will actually
continue to decompose a little bit and release even more
nutrients for plants. And so it's as simple as that,
just taking your own native soiland mix in a lot of compost and
you can get started. Now I in my book, I talk about
that if you don't have compost, if you don't want to buy
(06:39):
compost, you're not familiar with the source of your compost,
then any organic matter will actually work.
So I use dried grass clippings, I use crushed leaves, I use
whatever organic matter I have. Remember what we talked about
last week about how to fill a raised garden bed?
Here we have another gardening expert outside of the university
(07:02):
system talking about using leaves and all kinds of other
types of organic matter to fill our beds.
We really do not need to be relying strictly on compost for
this. And so when I said, you know, I,
I have learned to build my own soils and I experiment a little
bit with that, it's because if I'm filling a bed in fall, it's
(07:24):
probably going to have a higher percentage of dried leaves,
crushed leaves. If I'm filling a bed in late
spring or summer, it's probably going to have a higher
percentage of dried grass clippings or even fresh grass
clippings that are mixed into it.
And so I have dozens of beds, and every bed has a different
(07:45):
soil composition based on what materials were available when I
filled it. And I don't think we can
overlook the fact that your native soil is going to have a
lot of the microbes that are native to your area that are
going to be able to help inoculate that compost,
especially if it's sort of brandnew finished compost in that
(08:07):
bed. When it comes to the building of
a raised bed. And I, you know, we've done it
six ways this Sunday. It's been leftover materials,
it's been cinder block, it's been, you know, here recently.
I've got a company that I work with whose beds that I love and
it's like shipping to me. And it's US Steel that I can all
put together, which is fantastic.
(08:28):
But one of the things that gardeners over the years have
been told not to do is to use treated lumber.
And as an OSU alumni, I will. I love the fact that Oregon
State University came out with astudy that said not really.
Can you talk about that study a little bit and kind of ease
(08:50):
everybody's minds? Absolutely.
In fact, I was actually part of that study.
So I, I worked with the Oregon State University team and like
like you said, I've got concreteblock beds, I've got metal beds,
I've got wood beds. And, and some of the team had
actually watched some of my videos on YouTube and saw that
some of my beds were made with pressure treated wood.
(09:12):
Some of my beds were untreated wood, Some of my beds had the
lower half untreated and the upper half treated.
I was trying all kinds of different combinations so that
I, I could, at least within my garden, point out to everybody
that the plants will do just fine regardless of how you're
using it. And I actually took soil samples
(09:32):
of all of my beds and sent them to Oregon State University as
part of that study. And what they found out was you
can use pressure treated wood all day long and not worry about
it. There is a minimal amount of
copper leaching because the the pressure treatments in the woods
(09:53):
that are available to us now areall copper based, but so minimal
that it had no impact on the plants.
And it's it's nothing to worry about anymore. 30 years ago when
the pressure treated woods were using an arsenic compound, then
yes, that was something to be concerned with.
(10:14):
And not so much because of the plants, but because if you are
working with wood that has arsenic in it and you're not
wearing gloves, it could be a problem.
But even with the the copper azole and all the other copper
based chemicals that they're using now, you can do it with
your bare hands. I, I use gloves just because I
(10:35):
don't want splinters when I'm doing the the bed.
But pressure treated wood is perfectly fine in the home
garden. So, you know, when people have
come and they have a concern about, OK, how much is it going
to cost me to do this? What is the least expensive way
for me to do this? Do you have recommendations for
them? Well, the least expensive way is
(10:55):
exactly what you said. I've got beds that I constructed
with reclaimed wood that cost nothing, literally nothing
because the wood was free, had abunch of nails just lying around
and I nailed the boards togetherand built a bed.
So that by far is the most cost effective way to make a bed.
You can also make a bed and it doesn't have to be wood.
(11:17):
You can stack stones, you can use whatever materials you have.
A raised bed is simply just an elevated area that we are
growing plants in and so the cheapest by far and very little
work is not even a half edging around it.
If you do like a Hugo culture mound, that's a raised bed and
(11:39):
you can actually grow in a moundof amended soil.
So that's that's one end of the spectrum where you can have
raised beds without spending anymoney whatsoever.
If you want to go into the mode of building the rectangular box,
which one of the huge advantagesto that is when you plan your
(12:00):
garden, you can in the cold of winter, set your little grid
paper and figure out where you're going to put your plans
and how many are going to fit inthe bed.
And that works perfectly with a rectangular box that's four feet
wide and eight feet long. And that's what you go to Home
Depot and Lowe's and buy 8 foot long boards.
(12:20):
You can make a bed like that. So Next up on that spectrum is
buying untreated wood that will cost you the least amount of
money. But as you pointed out,
depending on your climate, you might have to replace it in five
or six years. I'm at the six year point for my
untreated beds, but it's very dry here in Colorado.
(12:43):
And so I, I've got at least three more, maybe four more
years in those beds without any problem whatsoever.
Probably about 25 to 30% more incost is pressure treated wood.
And you can expect that to probably last twice as long.
And then as you continue moving up the spectrum, you can get
(13:04):
into concrete blocks or bricks or I've, I've made some beds
this last year that I just absolutely love with flagstone.
Now Flagstone is not cheap when you buy it in the quantity that
you need to build a raised bed, but it's going to last forever
and I will never need to replaceany of those components.
(13:25):
So there's there's for the most part, a pretty direct
correlation to the cost and how long the bed is going to last.
One of the things that I found in your book, there was a
picture of a spiral. Herb.
Garden that was just these stones that spiral and now I am
fat. I am determined to build one of
(13:47):
those here. I thought that was just the
coolest design. And it just goes to show, you
know, it doesn't have to be linear thinking.
It doesn't have to be. We're going to make it 4 by 8
and every single one is going tobe 4 by 8.
And there's going to be exactly 18 inches in between each path
or 36 inches or whatever it is. You can be as linear and as
(14:11):
organized and you know, point topoint as you want to be, or you
can be as whimsical as you want to be in your garden with raised
beds. They don't have to be 1
particular type. OK, coming up, Scott and I talk
about working with new compost, soil management, and the process
of becoming a master gardener, which was something I was
(14:32):
completely unfamiliar with, but I get asked about a lot.
Everything that Gardner Scott istalking about in this episode is
true of raised beds and my favorite raised planters come
from Planter Box Direct. You get your choice of colors,
sizes, dimensions, even tiered planters and planters on legs to
(14:52):
fit every garden space. They're simple to put together,
but they're designed to last a lifetime and they are my go to
when designing any new space around my gardens.
Through October 15th, you can save 20% and get free shipping
on these USA made steel beds at Planter Box direct.com.
Use code Just Grow 20 in honor of this special raised bed
(15:15):
series. And you'll have your own new
planter beds in time to build them and fill them this fall so
they'll be ready to plant in thespring.
Planter Box direct.com with codeJust grow 20.
The link is in the show notes. When when you talk about
compost, using compost for raised beds, one of the things
(15:35):
that I have encountered with folks who have no way to really
create their own compost, or at least not in the volume.
That they prefer in. Terms of having to purchase
compost to bring it in, one of the things that I have
encountered is when people are building new raised beds and
they get this idea of, oh, it's spring.
It's time for me to build my beds and I'm going to bring in
(15:58):
this truckload of compost. And then they're going to fill
the bed in its entirety with this brand new compost.
And then they find out that their stuff is not growing.
And you know, I, I see the frustration because they don't
understand why that is. Can you speak to that a little
(16:18):
bit? Yeah.
So, so compost is organic matterthat is in various stages of
decomposition. And depending on where you get
your compost from, it might actually be sterile.
And a lot of the major manufacturers will sterilize the
mix so that it stops decomposing.
(16:41):
Well, it's the life in our soil and it's the life in our compost
that makes the nutrients available to the plants.
And so plants don't grow in a sterile environment.
It can be the most amazing compost in the world.
But if you don't have that microbial activity and that
fungal activity within the soil,the plant is going to starve.
(17:05):
It can't, it literally can't access all those nutrients.
And so, yeah, by all means get the the compost by the
truckload, but what I recommend is you do that in fall because
you put the compost in your bedsin fall.
Now you have all of the autumn months and the winter months and
(17:26):
the early spring months for thatsoil life to populate that bed
and make all those nutrients available to your plants.
I love it when somebody else preaches this besides me.
That way they can hear it from somebody else.
So, you know, talk to me about becoming a Master Gardener
(17:48):
because I have a lot of people ask me about this and I am not a
Master Gardener. I, I have a degree in
horticulture from Oregon State, but I've never gone through, and
I've had Master Garden. I've gone to Master Gardener
meetings and I've done presentations and had them out
here, but I've never actually gone through the sort of course
curriculum that goes along with this.
Talk to me a little bit about that process because I've had
people ask me about what it takes.
(18:09):
Sure, And I I became a Colorado Master Gardener a little more
than 20 years ago, and the process has changed mildly.
And each state might have its own minor modifications, but the
basic process is that there is auniversity in every state that
overseas the Extension Service. And the extension office is the
(18:32):
one that overseas the Master Gardener program.
And so when you become a Master Gardener, you are actually doing
it under the auspices of some State University.
So here in Colorado, it's Colorado State University that
overseas the program. So when I went through, and
these were in the days long before the computer and the
(18:53):
Internet and YouTube even, it was actually instructors from
Colorado State University in thehorticultural department that
were doing most of the teaching.And the exposure to gardening is
quite broad. And so it's the way I typically
explain it to people is it's it's a weeks long program and
(19:19):
it's an all day class. So it might be Tuesdays or
Thursdays. I think we went on Thursdays.
And so in the morning for three hours you get non-stop education
on vegetable gardening. And then in the afternoon you
get 3 hours of non-stop instruction on fruit gardening.
(19:39):
And then the next week, you comeback and you might get 3 hours
in the morning on soil composition and then in the
afternoon after lunch, you get 3hours on compost and mulch.
And so that's the way the program tends to be laid out is
a very broad education without particular focus on anyone area.
(20:04):
And then after a couple months of classes, and so depending on
where you're going, it might be 8 or 12 weeks of these little
snippets. I think biology might have been.
One where like the morning was biology and the, the afternoon
was botany. So that was the closest we came
to a full day of the the same topic.
(20:26):
But you're, you're not an experton anything and you finish and
you have to take tests of coursealong the way.
And when you are done, you're still not a master gardener.
So that class is offered usuallyto the the green industry.
And so you have a lot of landscaping companies, for
(20:47):
instance, that might send their people to those classes.
To become a Master Gardener, youneed to go to the next level,
which is volunteering in the Master Gardener program for a
period of months. And that's where you really
begin that that expertise phase.Here in in Colorado Springs,
(21:11):
where I'm from and in most areas, there's a help desk or
there's some operation where theMaster Gardeners answer
questions. Well, the Master Gardeners that
are answering those questions are the Master Gardeners that
just finished the training for the most part.
So when they're asked a question, they might not know
the answer, and often they don'tknow the answer.
(21:31):
But what they've been taught as part of the Master Gardener
program is how to find the answer and to look in the fact
sheets that the Extension Service provides so that they
can answer about insects or flowers or soil or compost.
And that's really how you becomea Master Gardener.
(21:52):
You have to complete that volunteer phase before you get
the certification of Master Gardener, and then you have to
carry that on. If you want to maintain that
certification, you have to continue taking some classes and
you have to continue volunteering over a period of
time. That is fascinating.
(22:12):
I had no idea that Cass County Master Gardeners when they have
their, you know, their call in hour every week that those are
the brand new people who are answering those questions and
they're looking it up. That's that's fascinating.
But it's a long process. I mean, that's, it's some work.
It's not something that you can just, OK, you know, I'm just
going to decide to do this. You really need to have a
commitment, especially to maintain that certification.
(22:34):
So you continue to have to do continuing education every year
in order to sort of meet those qualifications to maintain in
your certificate. Yeah, basically it depends on,
it depends on the the respectiveMaster Gardener programs.
So there there's variety, you know, throughout the country and
Canada as well also has similar programs.
(22:56):
And so there's a key difference too, because when you become a
certified Master Gardener, if you choose to continue to, to be
certified, you don't have to know everything.
Master Gardeners tend to focus. And so most of the Master
Gardeners I know might be an expert on irises, or they might
be an expert on roses, or they might be an expert on compost.
(23:19):
There are very few like me who just love learning and love
gardening and try to learn everything possible about
gardening. And then you might reach a point
like I did, where I, I kind of outgrew the Master Gardener
program and the things that I was being taught were not new.
(23:39):
I, I knew much more than that. So while I'm a Master Gardener,
I'm no longer a certified MasterGardener because I stopped doing
the volunteer hours and the the continuing education.
I think you're doing enough, enough education on your own, I
don't think. You have to worry about.
The hours being tracked. And that's interesting.
(24:00):
I think, you know, sometimes, especially as somebody who is
predominantly a, a vegetable gardener, I'm just like dipping
my toe into messing with flowersbecause this is, I mean, this is
18 years of, of growing vegetables for the public.
And so my concern has always been production level and forget
if it looked pretty, forget if there was flowers out there, you
(24:21):
know, unless it was a native pollinator garden, that was
fine. I'm just now sort of dipping my
toe into roses and, you know, some other things.
But I think I always tend when somebody says gardener, I
automatically go to vegetables. So it's interesting that you're
like, oh, no, there's, you know,there's the Master Gardeners, a
lot of them. It's just about the flowers.
And I guess I have to remember that when people want to come do
(24:42):
a tour, when the Master Gardeners want to come do a tour
and they want to see what we're doing out here, They're they've
done the flowers, they haven't done the.
Vegetables Coming up, Scott and I talk about crop planning in
raised beds. Versus in ground?
Beds preventing fungal diseases.How watering requirements.
This may change a little when you control the composition of
the soil, and more that's next. You had mentioned you know the
(25:06):
ease of planning in raised beds.I am a planner through and
through. The 1st course I released was a
planning course. It wasn't the course that
anybody wanted, it was the course that I wanted to give
them because I am a planner and I agree with you.
Raised beds make it so easy to just sit down with a grid and be
(25:27):
able to space everything out beautifully.
Plan your inter plantings, plan your inter croppings.
What I have found is that sometimes, you know, I am I am
very much about hey, make take advantage of all the space you
possibly can and make sure that you are pairing these these
plants together. You know, I have a high, low,
fast, slow, kind of, you know, method where that's how you pair
(25:49):
everything together. So they complement each.
Other but I. Think in raised beds sometimes,
now maybe not where you are because the humidity level is
always so very low. In most instances, I have found
that because that soil level is just below the edge of the bed
itself that sometimes we worry alittle bit more about some
fungal diseases getting in therebecause there's less airflow
(26:11):
because it sort of gets trapped in there.
Do you have recommendations for people about properly spacing
your plants within the raised beds as they're planning versus
maybe how they would do it in anin ground bed?
Oh sure. And I luckily don't have many
issues because I am like you said, very low humidity and very
(26:34):
highwind. So most of my plants I have the
opposite problem. I have to worry about my beds
drying out too quickly. But but that's that's a very
important thing to be aware of. And and it does depend on the
plant because there are some plants that like higher
humidity. But if you live in an area with,
with high humidity and fungal diseases as part of normal
(26:57):
gardening, there's, there's two big things that I usually
recommend. The first being, of course,
pruning and taking off usually lower leaves in tomatoes.
That's the example that that is is so prevalent.
So you can get the air flow across the ground.
So it does dry out a little bit more and you don't have the the
(27:19):
likelihood of those fungal spores bouncing up onto the
leaves of your tomato plants. So selective pruning can make a
big difference. You can also get into trellising
where you you get the plants away from the ground.
Now you can also do this in in ground beds, but it's just so
easy in raised beds where you can build a trellis that fits
(27:41):
the bed perfectly. And then you grow up basically
away from that high humid environment that's all wet next
to that mulch on top of a wet soil and you let your plants
breathe, you let you let let theairflow go through the plants.
So those two things I think are very important and are often
(28:02):
overlooked by gardeners who havethose kind of fungal issues.
And then of course, with the up and with the pruning, you throw
in what you're talking about, which is ample spacing between
the plants. And the problem I see most often
is, is gardeners don't think about how big the plant is going
(28:23):
to be right about the time that they're wanting to harvest that
plant. And plants can get quite wide
and they can spread quite a bit.So you look at the seed packet
and it says space 12 inches apart.
Well, yeah, that's fine for probably most of the life of
that plant. But when that plant ends up
being 24 inches wide and you gottwo of them together, you've got
(28:47):
no airflow and you are creating the perfect environment for
fungal diseases and for pests that like to hide amongst the
branches as well. So the spacing does need to
account for what the plant is going to look like later.
And, and it's tough, I know you know this as well.
When the plants are young and they're so far apart, you, you
(29:08):
feel like you just got to stick something in there.
But but you could be asking for problem a few months down the
road. Yeah, My favorite trick is to
put something in there that is going to be harvested well
before that other plant gets to maturity.
So I mean, I'm infamous for, youknow, planting my tomato plants,
but also having lettuce or spinach or something underneath
it. That's.
Going to be. Totally done and out of the bed
(29:31):
by the time the tomatoes need that airflow.
I think. Too, what would you say about
the watering requirements for raised beds because I mean again
in your area it's super dry in most instances it's very windy.
Do you find that your raised raised beds dry out faster than
what you would see in like an inground bed and you have to
(29:52):
adjust your watering for that? So in my area, my in ground
Rembra was talking about how terrible the soil was and how
sandy it is and the water drainsright through it.
And so my raised beds, because there is more organic matter in
the beds, I actually do water less, not by much, but a little
bit less because the soil is retaining more water because of
(30:15):
that organic matter that's in it.
And then one of the things I didn't mention that when we were
talking about filling a raised bed.
But for my tall raised beds, thelower half is logs and branches
and wood chips and leaves to to fill U space.
And I don't have to pay for them, I just fill U that space.
(30:37):
But as those logs and branches and all that woody material
begins to decay, it just sucks up the moisture.
It's like putting in a little reservoir of water at the bottom
of my beds. And so that also helps moderate
the overall moisture level of the soil within my my beds.
(30:58):
OK. I want you to think about what
Scott just said. If you got distracted there for
a minute, go back and rewind andlisten again.
We talked last week about the layers in a raised bed when
we're filling them and about using those woody organic
materials, materials as one of the lower components, especially
when you are filling a very deepbed.
(31:19):
The concern sometimes is the breakdown of that material.
Is it going to steal nitrogen from our plants during that
breakdown process And that mightbe true.
If we are creating beds like this in the spring and using a
really large amount of carbon based materials and then
planting into the bed immediately, then yes, the
(31:40):
nitrogen that the plants need togrow.
Might. Be taken preferentially by the
microbes in the soil that need to use it to break down those
carbon materials. But if we are building these
beds in the fall and allowing the materials to settle in and
break down over the winter, thenusing those woody materials in
the bottom layers of the bed is not going to be a concern.
(32:02):
And as you heard, Scott, just say, this woody mass is actually
going to help the beds retain water as it decomposes.
So we're getting organic matter,we're getting nutrients and
we're getting water retention, all positives.
So I always test my soil on a regular basis.
(32:23):
I should do it daily, but I don't always do it daily because
other things get in the way. But just simply sticking your
finger in the soil to seeing howmoist, how moist it is.
And almost always here in Colorado, that top inch or two
inches is dry because of the lowhumidity and because of the wind
and because of the sun. But if you dig down 3 inches or
4 inches close to the root level, the soil might be
(32:47):
perfectly moist. And so that's how I water is
based on if the plant is gettingenough moisture where the roots
are and not so much if the top is dry or if the top is wet.
Raised beds do tend to dry out faster than an in ground bed,
all other things being equal, but you can moderate that by
(33:12):
making sure you have that extra organic matter.
Oh, I think that that's a huge, you know, plus to just one of
them to raise bed Gardening is again, that control over the
soil composition and being able to make sure that you have that
right amount of organic matter. And glad somebody else is
preaching the less frequent, more thorough waterings get down
(33:32):
there and that 4 inch mark to see whether or not they leave,
you know, they need that that moisture.
So I appreciate that viewpoint because again, if you're
controlling the soil, then you're you're controlling how
much moisture retention there, there is.
As I mentioned in the intro, Scott has literally written the
a book on raised bed gardening. His recent release, Gardner
Scott's Guide to Raised Bed Gardening, is exactly what it
(33:54):
sounds like, a down and dirty look at how to build raised
beds, build good soil, and how to plan for growing in those
beds. I was super excited.
I'm going to put that on the camera there to read this.
Talk to me about why you decidedthat your book was going to be
the guide to raised bed Gardening.
(34:16):
You mentioned that you and when you got started, nobody was
doing raised beds. There wasn't anything about it.
Was that part of the reason behind writing this?
Well, so that that was part of the reasoning.
Yes, absolutely. And I do talk a little bit about
that book. But when I was contacted by
Firefly Publishing and asked if I wanted to write a book, they
actually proposed a few subjectsand and I said I'd prefer to
(34:41):
write something that I really think I'm an expert on and that
others think I'm an expert on aswell.
Those other books, maybe you'll come at another time.
But it really was what what do Ido the most of?
What do I know the most about? And when I looked at my videos
on YouTube, I have more videos about raised beds than any other
(35:05):
video. My most popular video with with
over 4 million views, I think right now is about filling a
raised bed. So when I started looking at
what people are watching on YouTube, it it basically wrote
itself from that point on that yes, this book needs to be about
raised beds. I get more questions about
(35:28):
raised beds than anything else. And there's a lot of of, of
misconceptions, lack of awareness, and I think even for
people who garden in raised beds, And that's one, one thing
I wanted to put into the book iseven if you're a raised bed
gardener, there's so much more you can do with raised beds that
(35:51):
you might not even be aware of. Like you mentioned the herb
spiral, There's a lot out there that even experienced gardeners
can still learn and raise. Bed gardening.
Yeah. So what else?
What else do you think that people who have already been in
raised beds are already, you know, think they know everything
about what it is to do and raisebeds?
What are the other things that you think would take them by
(36:13):
surprise in terms of what they can do with their garden?
Well, you touched on it a littlebit earlier when you said that
get away from the linear thinking and start start looking
beyond what everybody else is doing.
You look at all the videos on YouTube and everybody's growing
in a four foot by 8 foot box. There are more and more people
that are starting to use the metal raised bed kits that you
(36:36):
alluded to. And beyond that, there isn't a
lot out there. I've I've got a bed on how to
how to make that cinder block raised bed.
And it's one of the few on YouTube that shows how to do it
because not many people are using cinder blocks.
And last year when I did my stone raised beds, I'm not
(36:57):
seeing a lot of other videos outthere with people making stone
raised beds. So that's that's it took me
years. I mean, I was a raised bed
gardener for about 20 years before I built my first stone
bed. And now that's all I want to do.
All I want to do is just design new stone beds with new stones
and new heights and new shapes. And my stone bed is, I have two
(37:21):
of them, actually. I use them as kind of anchor
points for an entry into my pollinator garden.
They are circular. You know, it's, it's basically
flagstone that has straight edges.
But I built the beds big enough and high enough that there's a
curve to them that just flows sonicely and it looks so nice.
(37:46):
And I'm using them for annuals and perennials.
They the the idea that vegetablegardening is how you garden when
you have a raised bed, that's another thing that not enough
gardeners are thinking about. You can grow some amazing plants
in raised beds that are outside of the the vegetable arena.
(38:08):
And so just expanding your mind to encompass the beauty,
potential beauty of a raised bedand the potential for new types
of plants in raised beds. That's that's what I'm really
hoping to encourage more gardeners to do.
Coming up, Scott digs deeper into the lessons he conveys for
gardeners in his book and the question that every beginning
(38:31):
gardener should be asking themselves before they begin.
Is there anything else that you that you wanted to point out
about you know your, your book, your YouTube channel, anything
else that you think people oughtto know?
Well, I, I wrote the book to be a, a primer for any gardener of
any level. And particularly if you are a
(38:52):
new gardener and you really aren't sure what to do.
Well, my book talks about askingthe most important questions
about gardening. You know why.
And I think you have to answer the why question before you
figure out where you're going toput your bed or what you're
going to grow in your raised bed.
(39:12):
So I, I ask a lot of those questions in the book or, or
encourage gardeners to ask themselves those kind of
questions. But then I talk a lot about
planning. I talk a lot about soil
development. I talk about plant selection.
I talk about the the climate andhow you match plants.
I talk about watering, I talk about trellises, I talk about
(39:35):
harvesting, I talk about the different seasons and what
activities are best in what timeof the year.
And so it's really intended to be a gardening book, it just
happens to have a focus on Ray'sbets.
I think you absolutely accomplished what you set out to
do. Anybody who has listened to this
(39:56):
podcast just listened to you sayall of that and went, huh, all
of that sounds really familiar. So now they understand why I
liked this book so much. So I appreciate you coming on.
Anybody who wants to find the book, I'm going to absolutely
link to that in the show notes. It's Gardner Scott on YouTube
and we will link to this. And I really appreciate you
(40:16):
being here today. Well, I'd loved being here with
you. I can talk gardening all day
long with anyone who wants to. And so I'm, I'm glad that today
it was you. I thoroughly enjoyed this
conversation with Scott about raised bed gardening and just
gardening in general. Like he said, at any time
(40:38):
gardeners get together we can talk for hours and hours about
anything gardening related. I will link to Scott's YouTube
channel and to the book in the show notes so you can check out
all of his stuff yourself. I truly believe raised bed
gardening is a fantastic way to grow, especially if you are
dealing with soil that is maybe less than ideal, which let's be
(40:59):
honest, that's probably about 7 75% of us.
Until next time, my gardening friends keep on cultivating
that. Dream Garden and we'll talk.
Again soon. But there was a lot that didn't
make it into the book. I had a lot more of the, you
know, this was me, this was my journey.
These are the things I like. And they said, no, this, you
(41:22):
can't have that in this book. This is we got to stick with the
information that is appropriate.And and so, you know, that's
that's All authors say the same thing.
You know, some of their best words are are cut out, but
that's all part of the process. It's.
Like, it's so difficult to be the writer and the editor.
It's like that. There's a reason you're not
(41:42):
supposed to be your own editor, because you believe everything
is. Exactly.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Ruthie's Table 4
For more than 30 years The River Cafe in London, has been the home-from-home of artists, architects, designers, actors, collectors, writers, activists, and politicians. Michael Caine, Glenn Close, JJ Abrams, Steve McQueen, Victoria and David Beckham, and Lily Allen, are just some of the people who love to call The River Cafe home. On River Cafe Table 4, Rogers sits down with her customers—who have become friends—to talk about food memories. Table 4 explores how food impacts every aspect of our lives. “Foods is politics, food is cultural, food is how you express love, food is about your heritage, it defines who you and who you want to be,” says Rogers. Each week, Rogers invites her guest to reminisce about family suppers and first dates, what they cook, how they eat when performing, the restaurants they choose, and what food they seek when they need comfort. And to punctuate each episode of Table 4, guests such as Ralph Fiennes, Emily Blunt, and Alfonso Cuarón, read their favourite recipe from one of the best-selling River Cafe cookbooks. Table 4 itself, is situated near The River Cafe’s open kitchen, close to the bright pink wood-fired oven and next to the glossy yellow pass, where Ruthie oversees the restaurant. You are invited to take a seat at this intimate table and join the conversation. For more information, recipes, and ingredients, go to https://shoptherivercafe.co.uk/ Web: https://rivercafe.co.uk/ Instagram: www.instagram.com/therivercafelondon/ Facebook: https://en-gb.facebook.com/therivercafelondon/ For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iheartradio app, apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com