Why Vegetables Grow Better On Raised Garden Beds
Have you ever thought about whether vegetables grow better on a raised garden bed than on the underground bed or cultivated soil?
Generally speaking, vegetable plants thrive on the raised garden bed, because the added soil will give additional nutrients, ensure adequate drainage, and provide more space for the growth and development of roots. But soil quality is the key. If the soil on the raised garden bed is poor, the plants will not grow better.
Can vegetables do better on a raised garden bed?
Of course, you can successfully grow vegetables in the underground garden. I mean, humans have been doing this!
But I prefer a raised garden bed to a floor bed for several reasons.
There are some alternatives that I really like. I want to make sure you know all about them, because if the raised garden bed is not suitable for you, you may consider these alternatives.
- Raised garden bed increases the possibility of gardening
Have you ever tried gardening on very uneven or sloping ground? Have you ever tried to plant plants on unbelievable rock ground or clay only soil? Or do you want to plant plants in areas covered with concrete or asphalt?
Obviously, you can't plant on concrete or asphalt surface, but if you try to place an underground garden on sloping land or in an area where the soil is hard clay or rock, it will not work well.
You may get some plants to grow, but the rain will wash away your soil and rocks will prevent your plants from growing.
My backyard has these three problems.
My yard inclines in all directions. My soil is basically just hard-packed clay. My backyard has a lot of concrete, because the previous car owner installed an independent garage and extended driveway.
If I try to plant plants only on the underground bed, I basically have no good place to garden. Raised garden bed enables me to grow all kinds of vegetables Often more than my family can eat!
- Raised garden bed allows rain whirlpool culture
Given the poor quality of my soil, I like the raised garden bed to allow me to practice the improved version of the giant culture.
For those who have never heard of it, the great culture is an ancient gardening practice, which basically imitates what often happens in nature.
Ancient gardeners often built mounds of soil instead of cultivated land, which is a relatively modern way of gardening.
They will put down big things like logs, branches and vines, cover them with smaller pieces, and then cover everything with grass, leaves or other materials that are easy to compost.
As time goes on, all these materials will start to decompose and people will plant them directly in the mound. These mounds are rich in nutrients, and they allow people in areas with poor soil to develop incredible gardening space.
You can do the same thing with a raised garden bed
I recently installed a 17-inch raised garden bed on the hard clay in the backyard.
I didn't fill the whole bed with mud, which would cost more money. Instead, I filled more than half of it with the materials on the Christmas tree that my neighbors threw on the street.
You can place many materials at the bottom of the raised garden bed to create healthy soil, but I like to make sure that I have both brown materials, such as logs, branches and sawdust (for carbon), and green materials, such as leaves, flowers and kitchen residues (for nitrogen). The Christmas tree is very suitable for this!
I also added sticks and branches, grass scraps, kitchen debris, remaining flowers and other compostable materials. Then I covered everything with 6 inches of garden soil (15 cm).
A year later, that bed will be filled with amazing and nutritious soil!
- Raised garden bed (possibly) has better soil
Because I can accurately control what goes into the raised garden bed, I can ensure that the soil there is the best.
When I first started gardening, I seldom thought about the soil I was gardening.
I remember going to Home Depot, buying a pile of garden soil bags, and then pouring them into all the containers I use.
I don't know what I'm doing, but it's interesting!
But after the first year, I had to think more about soil because I wanted to reuse it year after year instead of spending more money to buy more and more soil.
No matter what soil is on your property, your raised garden bed can let you do whatever you want to do to promote better soil and plant health.
- Raised garden bed makes soil testing easy
However, suppose you are not sure about the quality of the soil.
Maybe you have moved to a house with some raised garden beds in the backyard. Maybe you just pour a bag of dirt into your bed and hope to get the best result. Maybe your plants didn't perform well last season.
The rest bed will make it easy for you to conduct fast and simple soil tests.
I really don't recommend using the products you find on Amazon or other online retailers.
To do this: check the website of your local agricultural extension office and see if they have information about soil testing.
In Texas, testing your soil is very simple. You just need to take a sample and send it to the Texas A&M expansion office, and wait a few weeks to get the results.
Soon, you will get a detailed breakdown of soil ph and overall health, as well as suggestions on how to improve the soil.
How easy it is!
- Raised garden bed for composting
Not everyone has space in their backyard to make their own compost, but if possible, it will greatly improve the overall health of the garden.
You can also buy high-quality compost at the local garden center, but the things you make are free!
Every season, I like to add a few shovels of compost on my raised garden bed and add nutrients to the vegetable seedlings a few weeks before I transplant them.
If the soil on the raised garden bed looks very rough these days, you can even remove some soil, and then replace it with compost and fully mix things.
This will immediately help improve the soil conditions of vegetable plants.
- Raised garden bed allows rapid coverage
One thing I like about raised garden beds is how easy it is to cover them with mulch.
Don't underestimate the power of the covering. If you can get sawdust or even buy mulch bags from the local garden center, please lay them on the top of the raised garden bed after planting vegetables.
The mulch will inhibit any weeds that may try to grow. It will also help your soil retain moisture and improve the overall health of plants.
- Raised garden bed can improve water retention
As I just mentioned, mulch is very important because your plants perform best in soil that is neither too dry nor too wet.
My native soil is hard clay, which is very bad for vegetable plants, because water is not easy to absorb, and when it is absorbed, the clay will retain it for too long.
By installing raised garden beds and filling them with the best materials, I can immediately improve the water retention of the garden. There is no need to fight clay anymore!
- The raised garden bed has better drainage
Now we talk about water retention, let's talk about drainage, because if the soil does not put boiling water, water retention is terrible.
In order to install my raised garden beds, I dug the grass under them so that I could start again.
When I did this, the clay I dug out was wet and sticky, like semi-hardened glue.
Vegetable plants do not grow well in this soil because the roots are difficult to expand and develop, and it is difficult to water deeply, because water either flows from the top of the soil or is retained by clay.
If you have a raised garden bed, you won't have any problems here.
Suppose you fill them with high-quality soil and make sure they are placed in a sunny area, and the water will drain from them well.
- Raised garden beds help weeds and grass
If you are interested in opening a garden, you will have to fight against the native weeds and grass in your area.
Your plants will, too. When it comes to healthy plant development, this is never a good thing.
Raised garden beds will help for several reasons.
- First, you can kill weeds and grass by placing thick cardboard underneath.
- Second, you can surround your bed with sawdust and kill the grass that tries to climb into your raised garden bed.
- Third, you can cover the bed a lot to inhibit any weed seeds. Just make sure to leave a few inches of space at the top so that you can add the thickest possible overlay.
- Raised garden bed provides space for the shed frame
- One of my favorite things about elevated garden beds is that they make it very easy to create scaffolding and other vertical gardening structures.
- If you are like me, you do not have a lot of space on your property. If you can plant plants vertically instead of along the ground, you will get the maximum benefit from the harvest.
- If your property has a wooden raised garden bed, you can add structural support beams on each side of the raised garden bed, and then create a grid above the bed.
- We have such a system in the community garden. I do some gardening there, and the effect is very good.
- The wood will warp over time, but you can string various plants from the ground to the wooden shed above.
Cowboard scaffold is even better.
You can create arches with cow boards that extend from one raised garden bed to another. You can also hang the cow board above the raised garden bed and provide additional support.
You can even connect the cow panel to the column and place the panel in the raised garden bed, which is what I have on the bed of the community garden.
In other words, once you install a raised garden bed on your bed, there are many ways to start planting plants vertically and increase the overall harvest.
- Raised garden beds are better than containers or planting bags
When I first started gardening, I bought a pile of paint buckets, drilled holes in the bottom, and began to plant plants in the buckets. I also used planting bags.
I did this because I wanted to rent a house, and the only place I could garden was on the asphalt driveway.
Fast forward 10 years, I have a backyard for gardening, but it is not very big. I have a terrace, so I also try to use it.
Whether you plant plants somewhere in the yard or on the terrace, no matter your property size, the raised garden bed will provide the soil you need to maximize the harvest.
When it comes to gardening of containers or planting bags, drainage is also a problem. The total amount of soil is relatively low, so it needs to be watered almost every day in summer.
For planting bags, if you do not water them very, very slowly, you will lose water from the side because the bags are porous.
In fact, one of the ways to solve the problem of watering planting bags is to take 3-4 of them, put them into the children's pool, and then fill the children's pool with a few inches of water.
You are basically watering them to overcome the defects of planting bag gardening.
But guess what is better for your plant? Elevated garden bed. If you have space, money and time to do so, they will bring you a better harvest than buckets or planting bags.
- Raised garden bed makes harvesting easier
If you have ever experienced any kind of mobility inconvenience, do you know how difficult it is to gardening when you lose your behavioral ability slightly
A few years ago, I underwent knee surgery and experienced a very difficult period of recovery and recovery.
During that time, I could hardly keep the garden growing. If it were not for my wife and children, these plants might die.
This is a very convenient place for raised garden beds. If you have any type of medical problem that makes it difficult to kneel or bend, you may benefit from investing in a raised garden bed.