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Sun Jan 13 23:04:38 EST 2008
bed, but not walking on it. From a long discussion with Emilia Hazelip, the
best reason I can see for raising your beds is to keep clueless homonids
from walking on them. How many visitors have I had that assume that mulch is
to walk on!!!
Terrace walls, on the other hand, are crucial if you're on slope. I like
stone, and often use urbanite as the most readily available, despite
warnings of ash from industrial processes used in the manufacture of cement.
I think the coolest thing to do with a stone wall is a trick I learned from
folks in the rock garden society. Weeds in stone walls are a real pain in
the glutes. So make a "mortar of 1/3 compost 1/3 peat (or coco fiber or ?)
and 1/3 3/4 minus crushed rock, and slap this between your stones as you
build and put in (pelletized?) seeds of appropriate species as well as
transplanting 1 inch plugs of other appropriate types. Of course, you'll
want to select your wall polyculture (singing pollywallyculture all the
day?) carefully for traits such as supressing grasses allelopathologically &
etc. You'll end up with garden in your retaining walls instead of weeds to
continually infest your beds.
I do often use raised beds- but they'll be of a hugelkultur sort, literally
building on top of the grade. Here, I start with alder logs as a foundation.
-Rick
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