Summer Update:
Summer was as tough on me as it was you! I had exactly zero tomatoes due to the heat. While summer may be a loss, I will be planting a fall garden. The September issue of Entertainment Fort Smith has an article about fall gardens, what to plant and when. Good luck!
At the Learning Fields, the U of A Cooperative Extension Service has installed 6 raised beds. Each year we grow something different.
 Here's a shot of the Chinese cabbage and the carrot and beet bed this fall.
(The red stuff is coleus, alternathera, and Dark Opal basil that I hadn't pulled out yet. Nothing edible!)
 Broccoli is in the background and had just been harvested. Way back there, the brick thing is the spiral herb garden, in case you wondered!
 WOW, that was a HOT day!
HOW TO BUILD THEM, YOU ASK?
CONCRETE BLOCKS
There's lots of ways to build a raised bed. A version that is cheap and works great with herbs is to use concrete blocks. Go to a commercial building supply and ask for seconds, they're cheaper. This will be about 8" tall, but you can buy half block as caps and get it closer to 12". You can make any size bed this way, but I recommend limiting the width to 4' so you can reach across without putting your weight in the bed and compacting the soil.
 LANDSCAPE TIMBERS
This version is very common. It uses landscape timbers. I excavate a little of the dirt from the middle when I make this kind. You can make it 2 or 3 timbers high. This works well, but it may not last as long as some other systems. This will make a 4' x 8' bed.
 TREATED 2x6 LUMBER
This is the plan I used at the Learning Fields. It has a neat appearance and is easy to build. I use 2" x 6" pressure treated pine (you can use any wood, just make sure it won't rot.). The long walls are 8' long; the short 4'. I get a 8' long 4" x 4" and cut into 4 pieces for the corner anchors. Build it upside down on a level surface with the legs sticking up. I bury the legs. The legs keep it from moving. If you want to build one 10' or longer, you should add more legs so that no span is longer than about 9'. This prevents bowing out when filled. I attach the boards to the legs with lag screws with a washer.
 Q-BERT?
Remember: you don't have to necessarily do rectangles!
 What to fill it with?
There's lots of recipes on the internet for soil. I just used 1/2 sandy topsoil, 1/2 compost. I added 2 coffee cans' worth of lime to the beds. I mulch with cottonseed hulls and at the end of the season turn it all in. That helps with weeds and water use, too.
If you have questions about raised bed gardens, contact me at dblakey@uaex.edu.
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About UsThe River Valley Master Gardeners are a volunteer organization dedicated to serving our community through horticultural work. Our members come from Crawford and Sebastian Counties in Arkansas and the adjacent counties in Oklahoma. The Learning Fields is a hands-on horticulture education center operated by the Master Gardeners. To learn more about Master Gardeners or this project, contact the Sebastian County Cooperative Extension Service at 479-484-7737.
The Learning Fields is a registered non-profit corporation in Arkansas.
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Raised Bed Gardening |