Practical Guides for Productive Raised Beds
30 guides published
How to keep salad leaves coming from a raised bed: which lettuce types need what room, sowing shallowly, coping with heat and bolting, two ways to harvest and sowing a little at a time.
How to grow tomatoes in a raised bed: choosing between determinate and indeterminate types, giving each plant enough room, planting deep, supporting it from day one and keeping moisture even.
Twelve dependable vegetables for a first raised bed, with the season, relative space need and starting method for each, plus the crops that take a lot of room and how to decide.
A step-by-step way to bring a settled raised bed back up: clear it, loosen the top, add compost or a compost and topsoil blend, rake, water and cover. No need to replace the soil.
How water should move through a raised bed, the signs commonly linked to poor drainage, a simple hole test, and fixes in order of effort, plus why gravel in the bottom does not help.
What compost does in a raised bed, how to tell when it is finished, which kinds to use, and how published guidance on amounts differs depending on the soil you start with.
A worked calculation for raised bed soil volume in cubic feet, cubic yards and liters, with conversions to bags and to topsoil and compost shares.
A step-by-step way to plan several raised beds on grid paper: draw the space to scale, move paper beds around, leave working paths, place tall crops, then test it with string.
How much space to leave between raised beds, how to test a path width for kneeling and a wheelbarrow, and how wood chips, straw, gravel, grass and pavers compare.
Bed depth comes down to what you grow and what is under the frame. See what extension services give for beds over soil and on hard surfaces, by crop group.
How to choose a raised bed width from your own reach, what extension services suggest for freestanding and fence-side beds, and how to decide on length and number of beds.
Sun needs explained by crop group, a simple way to log the hours of direct sun on your spot, and what to grow when a raised bed sits in part shade.
