Whether you’re new to gardening or a seasoned pro, raised garden beds can be an easy and rewarding way to grow your food. But to ensure that your garden bed is successful, there are a few things you need to know.
Start by choosing the right location for your raised garden. Look for a sunny spot that gets at least six hours of sunlight every day.
Choose the Right Location
Choosing the right location for a raised garden bed is crucial to its success. Getting the location wrong can result in many problems, from soil erosion to plant health issues.
First, look for a place that gets plenty of sun and isn’t in a rain shadow. This is especially important if you have backyard walls or fences near your raised garden bed.
Next, build the bed with at least 6 inches of soil depth and a maximum width of four feet. This gives you a wide enough planting area to grow all the veggies and herbs you need.
The depth of the soil is an important factor for all types of vegetables, as it determines how much moisture they can absorb and what nutrients they can use. Ideally, a deeper bed will require less watering.
Install a Drip Irrigation System
Watering your garden with a drip irrigation system is a great way to ensure that you’re delivering water to your plants at the right time. It’s also a more cost-effective and efficient option than hand watering or using a sprinkler head.
Drip irrigation delivers water directly to the roots of your plants, ensuring that they’re getting all the water that they need. It’s also a great way to save water and energy by cutting down on evaporation, which can help you cut your water bill.
Installing a drip irrigation system in your raised garden bed is an easy and cost-effective DIY project. It’s also a great way for you to get more enjoyment from your garden by saving money on water and reducing the amount of weeding that you need to do.
Install a Weed Barrier
A weed barrier is a great way to keep unwanted plant growth out of your raised garden bed. These barriers can be placed either directly on the soil or around your plants before they’re planted.
A garden weed barrier made of fabric can be very effective at keeping out weeds. This material is biodegradable and will last for years if properly cared for.
You can also use a barrier that is laid over rocks, gravel, or stone. This works especially well in areas that don’t require frequent maintenance, such as edge beds or flower and shrubbed beds.
Fill Your Bed with High-Quality Soil
Choosing the right soil is one of the most important raised garden bed tips and tricks. It’s the key to healthy plants and a successful gardening season.
Soil is rich in nutrients, critters and microorganisms that provide a living food web for plants to thrive in. It’s also biologically active and improves with time and age.
It is crucial to make sure that your soil has the right balance of nutrient density and water retention. Adding aeration additives like lava rock or pumice will promote drainage and help maintain evenly moist soil for longer periods of time between watering.
You can fill your beds with high-quality soil purchased in bulk from a landscape supply company or bagged at the garden store. Either way, it’s best to buy enough to fill your entire bed (or at least most of it). Don’t forget to add compost to your raised garden beds every year!
Plant the Right Crops
A raised garden bed is a great place to plant a variety of crops. You can choose from herbs, vegetables and flowers.
The amount of sunlight that shines on your raised bed each day plays a big role in the types of plants you can grow there. Vegetables, herbs and fruit need at least six hours of direct sun a day (“full sun”) to thrive.
Radishes are a great example of a quick-growing vegetable that you can plant in your raised bed. Just sprinkle a few seeds in an empty spot, and they’ll be ready to harvest within 35 to 60 days.
Beans are another popular vegetable to grow in a raised garden. You can grow bush beans without a trellis or plant pole beans that you can train to grow up a trellis.