5 Simple Steps: Vegetable Gardening With Raised Garden Bed for Beginners
Raised garden beds for vegetable gardening allow you to organically grow fresh produce anywhere in your backyard. Save money on grocery bills and eat healthy organic vegetables by investing a little time and effort in creating a raised garden bed. This is a good way to spend time and exercise with children outdoors, while children learn practical lessons on how to grow food. Children like to watch plants grow and vegetables mature on them.
Raised garden beds do not have to be laid on the ground. Gardeners with limited health can grow vegetables and flowers in a raised garden bed (a raised garden bed with legs).
The process of assembling the raised garden bed depends to a large extent on the materials used for the raised garden bed. Let's take a look at the most popular options for building a raised garden bed.
Select material for raised garden bed
There is no right or wrong material to build the raised garden bed frame. The work of the bed frame is to fix the soil in place. The structure can be created from any material in your previous building project, and can include wood, vinyl, metal, concrete, or synthetic materials. This paper mainly selects metal materials.
Metal roofs, galvanized steel, metal plates, wallboards, building frames, animal feeding troughs, or any other item made of metal can be used to create raised garden beds for growing vegetables. The metal or steel will last indefinitely and will form an attractive verdant over time, which will enhance your landscape appearance.
If I have to update my raised garden bed, I will use a metal raised garden bed
Once you have everything you need to build a raised garden bed garden, let's start building it!
There are 5 simple steps to setting up a raised garden bed:
Step 1: Select the location of the raised garden bed
Choosing the right position for the raised garden bed is essential for the healthy growth of plants. There are a few things to consider when choosing a location for a raised garden bed.
Sun
Look for a place in the landscape to keep the sun shining most of the day. Most of the food production plants planted in your garden need at least 6 hours of direct sunlight every day, and more sunshine time will be better.
Observe potential sites throughout the day. Notice how the sun shines on it in the morning, afternoon and evening. Note whether there are any buildings, trees or tall shrubs nearby that may cast shadows on potential garden sites.
Alternatively, you can use a heliometer to measure sunlight exposure at a location in the garden.
In addition, please consider the time of year during which you observe the possible location of the raised garden bed garden. When there are no leaves on the trees in winter, the sun may shine on the site in a different way than when the trees are completely defoliated in summer.
In the northern hemisphere, the south side of the house is the best place to place your raised vegetable garden. Similarly, if you live below the equator line, the north side of the house is the best place to set a raised garden bed.
Terrain
Consider the topography of the potential raised garden bed location. The flat position of a raised garden bed garden is ideal, but it can accommodate a slight slope and can also be solved. Just raise the inclined end of the frame a little so that it is horizontal at the top.
A steep slope is not the right choice for a raised garden bed, but it can be used for a lot of excavation and soil treatment. Instead of doing all this hard work, look for a more comfortable flat surface for a raised garden bed. Consider concrete terraces, driveways or sidewalks as viable options.
Water
Keep in mind when selecting locations that require regular watering. A raised garden bed near the water source will make plant maintenance easier. It can also be helpful to place it in an outdoor shed, garage, or any place where gardening tools and plant food are stored.
Avoid wet low-lying areas. Even if there are several inches (or feet) of growth medium in the raised garden bed, the excess water needs to be drained quickly. If the water cannot be drained through the soil, the vegetable plants will be in danger of drowning and rotting.
Wind
If you plant tomatoes and peppers on a raised garden bed, they can easily be damaged by strong winds. In windy places, the raised garden bed dries faster than the raised garden bed in the reserve. Consider choosing a location with a windbreaker, such as a row of trees, a fence, or a structure that protects your raised garden bed from damaging winds.
Step 2: Prepare the site for the raised garden bed
Now is the time to prepare the selected site.
First, ensure that there are no direct underground utilities below the selected location. Although you will not go deep into the soil when preparing the site or caring for garden plants, your raised garden bed garden may have to be removed if there is a problem with the buried utility pipeline.
Next, paint the floor to mark a border similar to the size of a raised garden bed.
Now, mow the grass and remove any shrubs, roots and big stones. Use a shovel to loosen the native soil to a depth of 6 inches. This will improve the drainage of the raised garden bed and allow the plant to grow deeper roots. Root vegetables such as carrots, radishes, and potatoes grow better when you take the time to break down the native soil in your garden bed.
Step 3: Set up a raised garden bed
Before assembling the raised garden bed, first consider the size of the raised garden bed. Raised garden beds should be at least 6 inches high to provide adequate soil space for plant root development. The width should not exceed 4 feet, so it is easy to reach from both sides.
For beginner gardeners, the most recommended raised garden bed size is 4'x4 '. Other popular configurations are 3'x6 ', 4'x8', and 4'x12 '.
The length and actual height depend on your personal preferences and available space.
Assemble the raised garden bed according to the instructions on the raised garden bed kit.
Step 4: Lay wires at the bottom of the raised garden bed
The bottom of the raised garden bed needs to be lined with materials to prevent weeds from growing through the raised garden bed. This will prevent weed seeds from germinating, so vegetable plants do not have to compete with weeds for nutrition and water. The absence of weeds in the garden also means less work for you.
You can use landscape fabrics, recycled cardboard or recycled clothing fabrics. You should avoid lining the bottom with plastic or other non porous materials, as this will prevent easy drainage and hinder the development of healthy worm colonies in the soil.
Arrange the bottom of the raised garden bed with the selected material.
Next, if you are using landscaping fabric or recycled cloth, it is better to add 2-4 inches of dry leaves, grass chips or other organic materials. This will help fill the planting bed, slowly decompose and increase the fertility of the soil. The organics will also help suffocate any weed seed that can pass through the underlayer and germinate.
Step 5: Prepare soil for the raised garden bed
Good soil is the most important component of high-yield vegetable garden. You can fill the raised garden bed with any soil mixture you want, making it far superior to the native soil in the garden.
A loose, nutrient rich soil mixture containing a large amount of organic matter makes it easy for plant roots to penetrate the soil. Therefore, the root has easy access to water and important nutrients. The addition of perlite to the soil mixture will help to promote good drainage and air circulation.
Special soil mixtures for raised garden bed gardening can be purchased at any garden supply center. These premixed soil mixtures will eliminate the guesswork in this step, but it costs more than creating your own soil mixture, and the composition may not be the proportion you want.
Customized raised garden bed soil formula:
Create a soil mixture of 50% potted soil or topsoil, 30% compost and 20% perlite. Depending on the type of vegetables you plan to grow, you may need to add a little sand to the soil mixture.
Melmix soil formula: The most popular soil mix formula is
Mix the following ingredients equally: • one-third of peat moss • one-third of vermiculite (or perlite)
- One third of compost (mixture of multiple types of compost works best)
Add the soil mixture to the top of the bed lining and organic matter until it is 2 inches below the top edge of the bed frame. Gently level the soil, thoroughly water it, and let it stand overnight before planting.
Soil reinforcement with additives:
Among my top ten vegetable gardening skills, the most important one is "investing in soil". In addition to using the custom or melmix formula above, soil reinforcements can also be added to increase the productivity of raised garden beds.
The two most important soil reinforcements are:
– Worm casting: These earthworm excrements are also called "earthworm excrements", which are the best soil additives for any indoor or outdoor garden. Mix 1 cup worm casting per 4 square feet of raised garden bed soil.
– Rock powder: It is a fine mineral powder containing many trace elements. Rock dust improves the productivity of soil and provides nutrients for vegetable plants, making products sweeter and taste better.
Conclusion
Even if you don't have much space or time for gardening, you can still use the raised garden bed gardening method to have a productive garden. The raised garden bed allows you to grow vegetables in almost any place and in any soil condition. In addition, you can produce more food on the raised garden bed than in the traditional underground garden. Setting up a raised garden bed for vegetable gardening is the most challenging and critical part, but with the right location, materials and soil, you can also start growing amazing vegetables in your backyard.