Trips for Inclined or Uneven Ground? Try A Garden Bed

 

Are you frustrated with the sloping or uneven ground in your yard? If you have sloping soil on your land like me, you may know how difficult it is to grow healthy plants on uneven land. Although small slopes can be managed through a large number of covered underground gardens, steeper slopes require the construction or installation of raised garden beds.

In fact, slopes exceeding a few degrees can cause severe soil erosion, making it almost impossible to maintain a healthy garden without using garden beds or containers.

The best way to garden on sloping or uneven ground is to install raised garden beds on slopes. Although wood seems to be an obvious choice, metal garden beds are a better overall choice than wooden beds because they are easy to install, resistant to corrosion, and typically last for 20+years.

Fortunately, installing garden beds can help alleviate the challenges of gardening on sloping or uneven ground.

Before considering wooden garden beds, keep in mind that when installed on slopes, wood is more prone to decay due to water runoff patterns, and may require more frequent maintenance. Building a wooden bed on a slope can be a challenging process and ultimately may not be worth your time.

In my experience, a raised metal garden bed is by far the simplest long-term solution to this problem. Their installation and maintenance are relatively simple and can be used for decades.

If you are ready to take your gardening to the next level, please continue reading to learn more about how metal garden beds can help you grow successful gardens in the most challenging part of your yard.

Can you put the raised garden bed on the slope?

Gardening on sloping or uneven ground presents various challenges that can make planting healthy plants difficult.

Here are some things that immediately come to mind:

1. Drainage issues

Depending on the type of soil on your property, sloping or uneven ground can cause irregular irrigation and drainage problems. When water does not drain properly, you may notice that your plants seem to be struggling. This cannot be guaranteed to happen on sloping ground, but I have witnessed with my own eyes how slopes make it difficult for water to properly immerse in the soil. "Instead of soaking evenly, you will find that a large amount of water simply flows down the slope and even accumulates in flat areas on the ground.".

2. Soil runoff

If you try gardening on sloping or uneven ground, erosion is one of the biggest challenges you face. My backyard has no erosion issues, but it's entirely because I'm not gardening on the slopes. I just let the grass grow there. But these areas are very suitable for planting plants, so due to the sloping ground, I must carefully consider how best to garden there. If you have exposed soil, when it rains, the water will quickly flow down the slope and carry away your soil. This will result in valuable topsoil loss and many headaches. But a garden bed will help keep the soil in place, as the sides of the garden bed act as a barrier, holding the soil in place and preventing excessive runoff.

3. Cover retention

Covering is essential for any garden because it helps to maintain soil moisture and inhibit weeds on gentle slopes. In addition to pouring rain, covering is usually fixed in place. However, it is difficult to maintain cover on steep slopes. During the current heavy rain, the cover will move or even wash away over time, exposing the soil to certain places. "Garden beds make gardening easier in areas where ground gardening is too difficult because they provide a barrier to hold mulch in place.".

4. Accessibility issues

Gardening on slopes can pose physical challenges, especially for the elderly or disabled.

Garden beds can help by providing more accessible gardening options. Because they are raised, they require less bending and bending, making them easier to use. Gardeners can even build garden beds of different heights to accommodate varying degrees of accessibility. On slopes, you must carefully pay attention to the area between the garden beds - and possibly make some leveling of the ground here and there - but at least you can use areas on your property that may not have been able to garden before.

Garden bed on sloping ground: in a simple way

When it comes to gardening on sloping or uneven ground, there are two main options for using garden beds: 1) building a wooden garden bed or 2) installing a metal garden bed. Although both methods have their advantages and disadvantages, I personally prefer to install metal raised garden beds.

In this section, I will explain the reasons and explore the advantages of installing metal garden beds on slopes.

First, if your property has sloping or uneven ground, let's start with the overall advantages of garden bed gardening:

Better drainage: Because you can level the ground on your garden bed, you don't have to worry about rain washing away the soil, and you can ensure that your plants are watered evenly.

Soil conservation As mentioned earlier, soil erosion can be a major issue when gardening on sloping ground. Raised garden beds will retain soil and prevent it from being washed away in heavy rain.

Cover retention: Raised garden beds will also retain cover, which is important for controlling weeds and maintaining soil moisture.

Improved accessibility: Raised garden beds are raised to make it easier to navigate and work. They also provide easier gardening options for people with physical limitations.

Table of advantages of raised garden beds on sloping or uneven ground

Now that I have provided some general information, I would like to carefully compare wooden garden beds with metal garden beds.

Wooden garden beds have the following advantages: They are 100% customizable. They are usually cheaper than metal garden beds. Unfortunately, wooden garden beds have many drawbacks: You need to spend time researching and designing the bed. You must purchase and purchase materials separately. When built on slopes, they can be challenging and require more accurate measurements. You need electric drills, screws, level gauges, and other necessary tools and supplies. Eventually it will rot, even those beds made of more expensive hardwood.

Now let's take a look at the pros and cons of installing a metal garden bed on your property. I will start with the disadvantages:

"They have various customizable options, but they are not 100% customizable.".

They are usually more expensive than wooden garden beds.

However, if you compare the disadvantages with the advantages, I think you will understand why I like metal garden beds best when gardening on sloping ground. The following are advantages:

You do not have to purchase materials separately. Everything will be pre packaged and ready to be put together.

As you will see from the step-by-step instructions below, garden beds are actually quite easy to install on sloping floors.

You usually only need a screwdriver or Allen key to put the metal garden bed together. No special tools or experience required!

4. They can easily last for 20+years. They may even live longer than me!

Installing a Raised Metal Garden Bed on an Inclined Ground: A Step by Step Guide

If you have never purchased or installed a metal raised garden bed before, you need not worry, as I will guide you through the process I used to install it in the backyard.

Here is how I learned to install a metal raised garden bed on a sloping ground:

Step 1: Select the garden bed that you are interested in purchasing and make sure to choose a size that fits your specific space.

Step 2: Open the packaging and follow all instructions to place the garden bed together.

Step 3: Now that you have a fully assembled garden bed, locate the slope where you want to place it and place it in the exact location you want.

Step 4: Using a garden fork or shovel, mark the perimeter of the bed so that you know exactly where to dig. For flat lawns, you do not necessarily need to remove grass from under the garden bed, but for sloping ground, you will have to perform some soil removal.

Step 5: Remove the garden bed and start the excavation process in the area you marked earlier. Remember, you need to remove more soil from the uphill portion of the marked area than the downhill portion, so that your bed is as flat as possible.

Step 6: Once your bed is mostly horizontal, you can use this technique to make it almost completely horizontal. Place a board on the edge of the metal garden bed. First place it on the width of the bed. Place a level on the board, and then use a small hand-held sledgehammer or sledgehammer to gently repeatedly hammer the board. This will slowly push the edges of the metal into the soil. Continue doing this until you level the width of the bed.

Step 7: Do the same thing by laying boards along the length of the bed (unless you have very long boards, this can be a bit tricky). Place a level on the board and hammer as needed to ensure that the length of the garden bed is as horizontal as possible.

Step 8: Repeat these steps several times, walking back and forth from width to length to ensure that you do not accidentally make any mistakes when tapping on the board.

Step 9: After leveling the garden bed, wrap the available soil around the outer edge to ensure everything is comfortable.

Step 10: Add a thick layer of cardboard to the garden bed, ensuring that all visible grass or soil is covered. You will want to kill all the grass and weeds, so for safety reasons, put down a lot of cardboard.

Step 11: After putting down the cardboard, fill the bottom of the garden bed with these high-quality compostable materials. The good news is that they don't cost money!

Step 12: To save extra money, fill most garden beds with mature compost or any of these natural materials (branches, leaves, kitchen debris, etc.). They decompose over time, providing an excellent growth medium for your plant.

Step 13: Leave 6-12 inches on top to obtain high-quality soil, and then place 1-2 inches of mulch on top. This will allow you to plant shallow rooted plants in the first year, waiting for the underlying material to decompose and become high-quality soil. After 12 to 14 months, you can plant almost anything on the garden bed because you will have enough soil for the plants to thrive.

By following these simple steps, you can ensure that your metal garden bed is level and stable.

As I try to point out in this article, gardening on sloping or uneven ground can be challenging, but using a raised garden bed can make it easier and more enjoyable.

Although both wooden and metal garden beds have their advantages, metal garden beds are preferred because they are easy to install, require low maintenance requirements, and have high overall durability.

To make a long story short, with a little planning and some elbow grease, you can grow amazing plants even in sloping or uneven areas of your property.