Growing in Raised Garden Beds

Unless you had the opportunity to have great garden soil, then you need to think about Raised Garden Beds, which as you'll find are a different way to grow in, especially if for vegetables. Having raised beds means that your current soil isn't any good and you need to but in soil to fill them. Just be aware that the soil you bring in, is probably not good growing soil and may even have problems, like we had here with a high soil pH.

My biggest garden bed

In a good Winter when the soil gets wet enough, you can actually dig into it, but about  200mm below the surface, we have rocks similar to river pebbles and it makes a garden in it almost impossible.It took two growing seasons to amend the soil we bought in and it proved a waste until we got the pH down to a usable range before I was confident enough to grow a decent crop in it. We achieved good results by digging in decomposed cow manure from the Saleyards in Sale, as it was full of worms and all the good things we needed.

Saffron, Blueberries and a Worm Tower

The first raised garden bed we made was one I made for my wife to grow her Lime tree in, which she also uses for herbs and strawberries. Then came the main vegetable garden, which is about 7.2m x 2.4m, this year is doing quite well with our Winter Crop. Other beds we bought in are 4 @ 3.6m x 1.5m and 1 @ 1.8m x 900mm, the smaller one shown above with two miniature Blueberry plants and a crop of Saffron Crocus between them, while the two of the bigger beds are used for vegetables, one is used for natives and one has an apple tree and strawberries.

 

Onions, Parsnip and Peas

Garlic

Apple tree, Strawberries with Natives in back bed.