Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Liz <liz@allslash.org>]

At 01:05 PM 7/11/2008, you wrote:


> I am a convinced and committed convert to raised beds.  I started building
> them and growing in them when I lived in Moab.  The soil on my place there
> was basically sand and river rock left after the creek nearby cut a new
> channel a hundred years ago and my home was built on the old flood plain.
> When I moved to Western Colorado my new husband knew it was a given that I
> would want to move my raised beds AND the soil in them over here with me.
> It caused a few raised eyebrows from family and neighbors who don't
> understand that soil is not just dirt.

Had to laugh at this. I've gardened in a lot of different places, 
though they were all in the southern and mid-Atlantic US states, and 
never thought of moving my soil with me. Wish I had the soil here 
that I was using in Virginia Beach. But mine is coming along nicely here too.


> My beds range from 5 to 11 inches deep and they sit on about 6 inches of
> native topsoil.  Down more than 6 inches into the native soil you find not
> much but fractured sandstone.

You have a challenging place for a garden! There's a lot of rock here 
too, but not in layers, just clusters that you can dig out and work 
around. The garden is currently near the top of a cap of sandstone. 
When I move it, some time in the next couple of years, it will be in 
a much better location for depth of soil. I'll be moving the improved 
soil also, but we're only talking about five hundred feet or so, not miles!


> I have never had permanent beds that were not raised beds. What I am curious
> about, Liz is how you are converting your permanent beds to raised beds and
> how deep or I guess a better way to ask it is how tall will the raised beds
> be.  I would think that they would be wonderfully productive since you're
> starting with greatly improved soil as a base.

I started out with two courses of 4x4's just laid on the ground, and 
this year I added a third course, as the original area filled up. The 
additional soil is a combination of compost, hay, newspaper, hardwood 
leaves and duff, grass clippings, and some commercial top soil (I 
brought home one truck load when I found a good price for it).

When I move the garden, I'm going to redo the raised beds with 2 x 
10's or 2 x 12's nailed together at the corners, and use the 4 x 4's 
for something else. They work okay, but I had to drill down through 
the ends and spike them together with rebar to keep them in place. 
Even with that, I'm having some problems with soil coming through 
between the courses.

As far as height is concerned, at some point I'll want them higher 
than they are now. I don't have any problems yet bending down to pick 
things or pull weeds (don't have many of those, but there is the 
occasional brave attempt). But one day I might have to worry about 
that, so I plan to construct the new beds in such a way that I can 
add a second layer of boards all the way around and make them twice 
as high as they are now.

Liz in SW VA
http://life-as-a-spectator-sport.com