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permaculture - RE: [permaculture] Material for raised bed

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  • From: "Michael Murphy" <mmurphy@ctsl.com>
  • To: <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: RE: [permaculture] Material for raised bed
  • Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2002 07:53:39 -0700

May I suggest poured earth? We are doing a house in poured earth with
18" walls, and will do our raised garden edges with 4" poured earth
walls. Build a form that can be used over and over, put a strip of
Tyvek in the bottom and pour a slurry of local clay + gypsum or cement +
a waterproofer like Ramseal. Our main form will be one segment of a
keyhole garden, so we sequentially pour several segments and then move
on to the next keyhole. We are also building one form to pour straight
walls and one to do a generic S curve. The labor is in the form, so you
want to think through how to build the smallest number of forms.
More info at:
http://www.michaelfrerking.com/pouredearth.htm
http://www.rammedearthworks.com/facts.html
http://www.ramseal.com/


-----Original Message-----
From: John Irwin [mailto:jwirwin@permaculture.net]
Sent: Tuesday, July 30, 2002 7:16 AM
To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [permaculture] Material for raised bed


Pc Pals:

Re: cob walls

I like this idea. We have Jeavons-style raised beds in our
garden which rests on a mild slope & I always wish the walls
didn't crumble & the bed would keep its original shape.

A big advantage of raised beds is that it allows more air &
more water in the soil but does not get too wet or too dry.
We have a drought going here, but our veggies are doing
OK.

Has anyone tried this cob-type method & does it allow the soil
breath adequately?

Would something cruder, more like mud work pretty
well?

For Pc & Peace,

John





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