Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Liz" <liz@allslash.org>]

I do box in my beds now, because it just makes things easier to get to, and provides a place to sit if I need it. Knees not doing well these days. But for years I gardened with "permanent beds" and have never double-dug anything in my life. Permanent paths make as much sense as permanent beds.

 

I have extremely heavy clay here. If I didn't at least mound up the soil with compost, I'd have to use the same kind of fertilizers and pesticides the commercial farmers use to make anything grow. As someone else said (Ken?), if you continue to plant in the same beds, they get higher year by year anyway.

 

A town that I drive through regularly on my inspection trips has a large assisted living home right on the highway, and as I passed it yesterday, I saw that they had constructed two very large and high raised beds, probably 30" or so high. Nothing growing in them yet, but I was happy to see them and I'll bet the residents of the complex are even happier.

 

Liz

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