Gardening for Geeks. Christy Wilhelmi
for their rubber duckies. If this makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up, you might want to create a special garden just for the kids.
Twelve inches (30.5 cm) deep: Unless you have rich, loamy, fecund soil to begin with, you will want to build a raised bed that is at least 12 inches (30.5 cm) deep. Adequate root space is critically important to a plant’s health. Some gardening experts say that 6 inches (15 cm) deep is plenty, but the truth is that the deeper the soil is conditioned, the more easily plants will grow. Give your garden a good head start by building a foundation that is deep enough. For those using wood for this task, 2- x 12-inch (5- x 30.5-cm) lumber is best.
Two-foot (0.6-m) pathways (3-foot [0.9-m] for equipment): An average gardener needs only 2 feet (0.6 m) of space between beds to access the garden with ease. It is wide enough to kneel or sit down without backing into the bed behind you. If you plan to use a wheelbarrow or small garden cart, or need wheelchair access, make the pathways between beds at least 3 feet (0.9 m) wide. Better yet, measure your cart/wheelchair and base your pathway dimensions on that. Some experts reduce the amount of space between beds in order to fit more crops. If you are comfortable with navigating the foliage that will inevitably spill out of your incredibly productive beds onto the pathways, feel free to reduce the pathways to 19 inches (48 cm) or less. Just be aware that melons and squash will make for an interesting obstacle course.
Plan your garden accordingly if you will have little helpers.
Low-Key Gardens
If you plan to have a more low-key, meandering garden instead, keep these principles in mind.
Stepping stones are your friends: No matter how you set up your garden, you will be able to manage it more easily if you place stepping stones in strategic places to help navigate around your growing areas. A well-placed piece of flagstone or tile can help direct wandering guests and help prevent soil compaction in conditioned beds. If you plan to have growing areas that are wider than 4 feet (1.2 m), situate more stepping stones in the middle of the growing area to allow for ease of access.
Mimic nature: Nature presents itself in winding streams and spiraling vines. You can incorporate these elements of nature into the shape of your garden beds. A curving pathway through irregularly shaped beds can be more inviting to curious guests than a beeline entryway. You can also incorporate curves into the garden to capture water (more on that in Chapter 7, Irrigation). If you plan to create undulating free-form shapes, it is much easier to use adobe or earthbags, rather than wood, to build your raised beds. Bricks and stones offer similar flexibility. Just make sure your materials are not so thick and bulky that you lose access to the planting areas.
Where Will You Sit?
There are many ways to create sitting spaces in the garden, and raised beds offer a couple of different ways to rest. You can create a sitting rail around the perimeter of the bed by adding a “cap” of a 2x4 horizontally atop the frame of the bed. Secure the cap with 3-inch (7.5-cm) wood screws and add vertical supports—usually also made from 2x4s—that run top to bottom on the outside of the raised bed, underneath the cap. Another option is to place your raised beds closer together, with smaller pathways, so you can sit on the edge of one bed while working in the other. This strategy also helps those gardeners with lower back issues.
A curving pathway can be both interesting and useful.
Geeky Gardening TiP:
Try a Keyhole Garden
A keyhole garden uses permaculture design principles that aspire to create more edges in the garden. The more edges you create, the more planting surface you have. This design is based on the shape of a keyhole and can be built as a waist-high raised bed or as low as a few inches (7 or 8 cm) above ground. Think of it as a circle with a pathway leading into the center from one edge. The circle is between 8 and 12 feet (2.4 and 3.7 m) in diameter. The entire area of the circle is planted, but not the pathway. Gardeners access the garden space from the center of the circle, along the pathway, and along the outer circumference of the circle.
Some keyhole gardens incorporate a compost pile into the center of the circle. If you would like to try this, make sure that your planting area is narrow enough so that you can reach it entirely from the outside of the circle. Keyhole gardens are an efficient use of space and break the straight-line boundaries of formal raised beds.
Raised-Bed Building Tips
There are many ways to build a raised bed, from Sunset Magazine’s basic structure (sunset.com/garden/perfect-raised-bed) to less formal beds made from recycled fencing. Sunset’s raised bed uses corner posts, but some gardeners prefer to reclaim those precious inches of growing space taken up by posts and build their beds without them. Either way, if you build your bed with materials that last, using a few helpful tips offered here, you will be able to enjoy your raised beds for years to come.
• Build on a level surface—It seems like a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised how many people try to assemble their raised beds in the garden among the foliage. Do yourself a favor and build the beds on a concrete patio or other level surface and then move them into place.
• Use deck screws—It will save you time (and maybe even a trip to the emergency room) to use 3-inch (7.5-cm) galvanized deck screws or stainless-steel screws instead of nails. Predrill your holes if you are working with materials like Trex® decking, which splits easily near the ends.
• Put the ugly side in—Lumber has an ugly side. It always does. Whether it’s a knot, a crack, or the neon-orange spray paint the company used to mark the product, you are likely to find flaws in the wood. Be sure to situate that flawed surface to the inside of the raised bed, where the soil can cover it. While you’re at it, check the wood for splinters or rough edges and point the roughest edge to the ground. This saves you the time and effort later on of either pulling splinters out of your thumb or sanding down your new bed.
• Hardware cloth, not chicken wire—If you have burrowing animals in your
neighborhood, there is one important step to take as you build your beds: line the bottoms securely with hardware cloth (welded wire mesh). Chicken wire is thin, and gophers can chew through it, but 1/2-inch (1.25-cm) hardware cloth will last for years and put your concerns to rest before you’ve even added soil to the beds.
How to Build a Raised Bed
1.Cut pieces of 2- x 12-inch (5- x 30.5-cm) lumber to the appropriate size. For a 4- x 8-foot (1.2- x 2.4-m) raised bed, purchase three 8-foot (2.4-m) pieces of lumber, and then you will only have to cut one board in half. Your beds will have an external dimension of 4 x 8 feet (1.2 x 2.4 m), but your internal dimensions, the actual growing area, will be slightly smaller.
2.Align the pieces vertically and bring the corners together as shown (see the diagram) on a level surface. Predrill the holes as needed and connect the corners with three 3-inch (7.5-cm) deck screws per side.
3.Once the frame is assembled, flip the bed over and attach hardware cloth to the bottom edge (if you are using hardware cloth) with 1/2-inch (1.25-cm) construction staples. Return the bed to the right side and position it in the garden.
4.Check the bed with a level to ensure that the foundation is…well, level. If your bed is sloped, water is likely to drain unevenly, and you may experience pooling in low areas.
5.Next, use a mallet or hammer to insert the 18-inch (46-cm) predrilled flat steel stakes against the inside walls of the raised bed. Place the stakes 2 feet (61 cm) apart. These prevent the wood from twisting or bowing under the weight of wet soil. It also prevents the bed from shifting over time, especially if you are building taller beds with several layers of wood. You will need to adjust the length dimensions of the stakes if you build taller beds. For a 12-inch (30.5-cm) bed, 18-inch