Raised garden beds are a popular choice for many gardeners due to their advantages such as early spring warmth, well-draining soil, and the ability to control soil. These beds provide variety in garden style, make gardening chores easier, and help build compact spaces that can accommodate a variety of crops.
The best plants to grow in raised garden beds include herbs, leafy greens, root crops, lettuce, cucumbers, onions, a variety of herbs, and peppers. Most vegetables and herbs, including tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, and basil, are suitable for raised bed gardens. Root vegetables like carrots are also suitable for raised beds. The best carrots to grow in raised beds are ‘Nantes’, ‘Danvers 126’, and ‘Imperator 58’.
Raised beds are ideal for growing herbs, leafy greens, root crops, and fruit for everyday use inside the kitchen. Leafy greens, basil, carrots, radishes, and other small-seeded plants are excellent candidates for broadcast seeding. Vegetables like carrots, sweet potatoes, potatoes, and beetroot can all be successfully grown in a raised garden bed.
To ensure the best experience and success when growing a garden in raised beds, it is essential to choose the right location, materials, size, shape, drainage, and compost. By following these tips, gardeners can create a successful and efficient garden space.
📹 Crucial Planting Tips for a Successful Raised Bed Garden!
ATTENTION RAISED BED GARDENERS ** Are you tired of using nuts, bolts, screws, and significant others to assemble your …
Are raised beds good for vegetables?
Raised garden beds are not necessary for growing food in small yards, as they were created to help gardeners with poor soil conditions grow great gardens. However, if you have naturally deep, level, and well-drained soil, you may not need raised beds and should instead use ground-level garden beds and create pathways around them. The soil in pathways will become compressed over time, and soft garden beds will remain slightly raised.
Raised beds have disadvantages such as heating up more and drying out faster than level ground, which can be a disadvantage in hot or dry climates. They can be expensive to create frames and fill the beds with soil, especially if using Mel’s Mix. Improving poor quality soil is difficult, as it is not possible to use mowers or large tillers in raised beds.
Changing the layout of a raised bed garden is more work-intensive than ground-level gardens. Gardeners often find that their interests or needs change over time, making raised beds more challenging to adapt to.
How to make raised beds cheaply?
Pallets are a versatile and cost-effective way to create raised garden beds, offering a unique and customizable solution for your garden. These beds can be stacked on top of each other and filled with soil, making them easy to create. Another option is to create a DIY raised garden using cinder blocks or concrete blocks. To begin, clear the area of weeds and ensure the ground is level. Arrange the blocks in desired shapes, such as rectangles or squares, side by side to achieve desired width or length, and secure them in place with concrete. These DIY raised garden beds add a unique touch to your garden and can be found for free or low prices.
What are the disadvantages of raised garden beds?
Raised beds have certain disadvantages, including accelerated drying, increased watering frequency, and greater initial construction effort compared to conventional gardens. Furthermore, the height and volume of raised beds may result in increased costs and may not be suitable for overwintering crops, depending on the specific height and volume.
Do raised beds need potting soil?
When growing plants in containers or raised beds, it is crucial to use lightweight and fluffy soil. For containers, use potting mix, a lightweight and fluffy alternative, while for raised beds, use a blend of potting mix and garden soil. Miracle-Gro® Potting Mix provides excellent drainage, airflow, and plant food for optimal plant growth. This new soil eliminates the risk of diseases or bugs in the ground. Miracle-Gro® Moisture Control® Potting Mix is an excellent choice for extra protection against over- and under-watering.
Raised beds offer ideal soil conditions on a larger scale, so a 50:50 blend of potting mix and Miracle-Gro® All Purpose Garden Soil is the ideal balance. This ensures the plants receive the necessary nutrients and avoid potential diseases or bugs.
What food is best for raised garden bed?
Sow seeds directly into raised garden beds between mid-September and mid-October, focusing on root vegetables like carrots, beets, and turnip. Leafy greens, onions, tomatoes, and potatoes are best suited for raised garden beds. A chart provides easy references for which vegetables grow well together and which to avoid planting together. Old-fashioned vegetable gardens often mix vegetables, herbs, and flowers, creating an organic pest control system.
Marigolds can be planted around tomatoes to inhibit green horn worms, which can devour entire plants in one night. This method adds color and repels insect predators, making the garden more visually appealing.
Why not to use raised beds?
Raised beds can be an economically viable option for horticulture, yet they necessitate more frequent irrigation due to their exposure to the atmosphere and the accelerated drying process, which can result in a more rapid loss of nutrients from the soil in comparison to in-ground gardens.
What grows best in a raised garden bed?
Perennial plants, which are permanent plants that return each year, are ideal for raised beds. Examples include daylilies, lavender, oregano, rhubarb, raspberries, and hostas. These plants will continue to occupy the space for a while, unless removed. For a breakfast blend, consider planting dwarf raspberry or blueberry bushes surrounded by cutting flowers, such as peonies, coneflowers, black-eyed Susans, and Shasta daisies. Annual plants, on the other hand, are temporary plants that last for one growing season.
Examples include petunias, pansies, basil, lemongrass, and vegetables like tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, squash, and onions. To reduce the risk of disease and pests, it is recommended to move annual vegetables around the bed. For a colorful annual garden, consider planting butterfly-beckoning plants like blue and red salvias, zinnias, pentas, gomphrena, and lantana.
What doesn’t grow in raised beds?
Mint, lemon balm, yarrow, and anise hyssop should be grown away from other kitchen garden plants as they tend to take up a lot of space and send runners underground to elbow past other plants’ tender roots. Raised beds are ideal for growing and tending a wide variety of plants, but not all edible plants can or should be grown in them. Some plants grow too large for raised beds, such as corn husks, which require a ladder to harvest.
Raised beds are designed to put plants on your level, but some plants may grow too tall for them, making it difficult to maintain a balance in the garden. Therefore, it is essential to choose plants that can thrive in raised beds and maintain a balanced environment for optimal growth.
What should you fill a raised garden bed with?
Raised bed gardens can be filled with compost, seed-free plant debris, kitchen scraps, grass clippings, used coffee grounds, newspaper, and weed-free straw. However, certain materials should not be included in raised beds. Garden soil is not suitable for filling raised beds as it can become dense and compact, impairing water flow and stunting root growth. Plastic sheeting is not suitable for suppressing weeds as it can become fragile and degrade over time.
Cardboard and newspaper are better choices for suppressing weeds at the base of raised beds. Rocks or gravel can create a false water table, impairing water flow. Grade the soil around the raised bed away from the garden and ensure good drainage. Treated lumber is not suitable for filling garden beds, and plant materials from allelopathic and water-resistant plants should not be used. Black walnut suppresses nearby plant growth, while cedar is naturally water-resistant. Therefore, it is best to skip branches, twigs, and logs from these tree species when creating raised bed gardens.
What should you not grow in a raised bed?
Raised garden beds can be a helpful solution for home gardeners, but not all plants are suitable for them. Some plants, such as squash, melon, corn, blackberries, mint, apple trees, asparagus, and pumpkins, require more space for their roots to spread out due to their sprawling vines or complex root systems. Raised beds can help incorporate the right soil for your plants and extend the amount of garden space, but not all plants will thrive in a raised bed.
Horticulturalists and arborists have provided more information on which plants should never grow in a raised bed. Some plants, such as squash, melon, corn, blackberries, mint, apple trees, asparagus, and pumpkins, are better off directly in the ground.
What food is best for raised beds?
Raised gardens are ideal for growing various vegetables, including carrots, potatoes, onions, and other root vegetables like parsnip, radish, and beets. These beds provide an elevated and contained environment, protecting seedlings from frost, pests, weeds, and disease. Carrots and other root vegetables grow underground, making it easier to control conditions in the landscape. Potatoes grow better in raised beds than in the ground, as they are easier to grow in an elevated area. Onions are another ideal crop for raised beds.
As seedlings sprout and flowers begin to bloom, it’s time for Bismarck gardeners to prepare their garden beds. Raised gardens offer a tidy and attractive environment for growing various vegetables, resulting in a bountiful harvest. The contained area allows for better control over the growing conditions, ensuring a healthier harvest.
📹 9 Beginner Raised Bed Garden Mistakes to Avoid
A few good soil mixes: – 1/3 perlite, 1/3 coco coir, 1/3 compost – 1/2 topsoil, 1/4 compost, 1/4 grass clippings, straw, leaves, etc.
I am so happy I found this website. Your articles are the right combination of information and entertainment. Too many content creators drone on an unnecessary amount of time. I get a lot out of your articles and will eventually get around to perusal them all. Keep up the great work and if I ever make it down that way I will definitely be stopping by the greenhouse.
Same in NY with the weather In fact we had frost a few days ago ‼️ I leave my pepers up until October, some of them turn from green to orange. I seen a article on taking the pepper plant in the house for the winter, you got to prune it and put it where it can get 6 hours of sun . Then next spring, plant back outside
MUCHO NACHO 4 LYF!! I have been growing them for the last 7 or 8 years, and they are by far the best variety of jalapeno. I love the heat and the flavor. I always end up with lots of jars of pickled mucho nachos with carrots and onions that I have to give away to friends. They all appreciate the extra heat of the mucho nacho.
Was able to start my beds in April (Alabama zone 7) and only covered the tomatoes once for frost. My beds are truly raised because they’re a couple feet off the ground. Easier to maintain without bending over, but I planted tomatoes close to the side for staking. We’ll see how it goes. Also got some of the Marconi peppers on your advice..
I love Bio Tone and I LOVE your articles even more! Very educational and wishing I lived closer to the nursery (zone 8B, South Georgia) But I do have two questions. I am battling army worms. They are AWFUL this year! The entire yard is eat up with them! So my questions are 1) do you treat preventatively for pests or as needed and 2) do you have any recommendations for these pesky army worms?
NEW SUBSCRIBER here: Can you please cover the cross pollination factor of not planting the same type of squash close together (including a list, because the internet has mixed lists), and talk about cross pollination of peppers as well. I planted 3 types of peppers in my raised bed a few yrs back & wow, did I have some funky tasting peppers!! How far apart do we need to plant squash or peppers so this doesn’t happen….and not waste valuable space?? Can this also happen with tomatoes? Thanks!!
How long does the wood on your raised beds last? I built my raised beds from landscaping timbers and it seems like they rot in 4 or 5 years. I have a lot of raised beds, so an economical approach is important. I’m not a fan of beds made with metal sides or cinder blocks. I’m NW of Houston, zone 9b, 8a. We get about 60 inches of rain a year, but sometimes a lot of it comes all at once. Last summer we went about 35 days in July-August with no rain. Also, is there a reason that you make your beds so tall? I could see doing it if you put a ledge on the edge so you could sit on it. I double dig the ground under my beds, and then build them up about 12 inches. My blueberries are in slightly taller beds, and I added some depth to the ones that I grow potatoes and sweet potatoes in. Still, beds about a foot high seem tall enough to me for most veggies, but the height of your beds has me wondering if I’m overlooking something?
I am 12 and I started gardening this year! I only did 2 dwarf tomato plants and 2 bell peppers plants. Your articles has helped me a lot and I am going to be doing my first harvest in about 2 weeks (I started late but I know I can move them indoors because I have a room that gets ton of sun) Thank you for all of your help!
Im 13 and just got my wood for building my planters this year, thanks for the advice! I found where my great-grandpa had his garden and apparently has good soil and sun, im doing half in ground patch – half raised beds. I really hope I can get all my perennials started like any berry bushes, rhubarb and asparagus so I can have some self-sustainability by the time im 15
1. And 2. Are Bed Placement for sunshine 3. Plan for irrigation 4. Invest in good raised bed soil mixed with compost Research good mixed soil.. and compost blends 5. Use Mulch (composted) 6. Make space for pathways – minimum 24″ 7. Planting space…and placement. Plants that grow taller in a place that won’t shade other plants 8. Take care of your bed soil over time… during fall and winter… make use of a cover crop 9. Label, track and record your plants, date of planting, expected harvest date, etc
A mistake I made early on was relying too heavily on interventions like soap spray and copper fungicide. Eventually, I realized that when shield bugs and cabbage moths and aphids got too numerous, they just naturally attracted their own predators. The key was creating an appealing environment for them to hunt in—one that mimicked a more wild or natural landscape. Every year now I find frogs in my garden. I hatch mantises. Ladybugs descend in huge numbers and breed in my garden. I plant a wide variety of native flowers around the edges of my garden and let some areas get weedy. I don’t spray anything anymore, because what kills the bad bugs always kills the good bugs. This year, juncos are nesting in the tall grass along my fence. They eat bugs when they’re raising chicks, so when I pull weeds I don’t want, they follow along and pick up all kinds of goodies in the exposed soil. It’s important to remember that your raised beds are as much a part of the landscape as a park or a vacant lot. Creating balance in your garden isn’t just good for you, it’s good for everything around you.
Awesome article! Kevin’s List of 9 Mistakes in Order of Severity/Permanence 1:21 #1 Not putting your garden in the right place 3:03 #2 Not planning for irrigation 3:44 #3 Not investing in good soil 5:03 #4 Not choosing the proper soil mix 6:04 #5 Not mulching 7:42 #6 Not initially making enough space for pathways 8:44 #7 Not thinking about what the plants will look like when fully grown 9:55 #8 Not preparing your beds throughout the seasons 11:25 #9 Not labeling/tracking what you planted & when you planted it
I have been gardening with my dad since I was about 7 or 8, helping with the strawberries, tomatoes, peppers, etc. I started to upgrade and had about 10 plants that I crammed in my room. There is a huge window in my room so they all did pretty well. Now I’m starting to grow my own fruits and vegetables in my own garden! My goal is to study botany in college and to become a botanist ! You articles have helped a lot. Keep doing what you do Kevin
Tips: Regarding watering consider making your raised beds wicking beds. The other idea to consider is using the German Hügel Kultur method and filling the bottom of the beds with logs, branches etc. This saves on soil and as it breaks down, adds nutrients, will retain water and provide a home for many organisms that will improve the quality of your soil.
One thing in raised gardens is remembering that the soil level is going to drop as it settles. Also how much root space is taken up. e.g. the depth of your root crop (carrots, parsnips, potatoes) compared to the top croppers (peas, beans and brassica) are vital things to look at when planting and sowing. Love the article, very informative
Just wanna say what a grateful fan I am of this website! I started gardening to give myself a healthier habit than smoking to deal with my anxiety and depression. I knew pretty much nothing but have successfully raised some crops in raised beds and containers, have some plants that have survived into their second year, and improved my health (through diet of increased veggies, and better mental health) All thanks to your articles! Thank you for the articles and tips they have improved my garden and my health.
Along with your last tip: take pictures of everything along the way! I have lots of pics w/ the seed packs laid out where I planted my seeds, which helps me remember what is where before they start fruiting, but I also just love the reminder of how much the garden changes! (And I can see “oops. Those peppers aren’t doing so hot there, next year they’ll need to find a new home!”
Everything that was covered in this article were great tips for the beginning gardener. A few more tips that I was taught, and have been very successful with, is to select the right seed – lets use sun flower seeds as an example (type doesn’t matter in this example) In a packet of seeds, not all seed look the same: some are flat, others are thick, an others are somewhere in between. Select the thickest seed (ovary) because it has a greater probability to start to produce a healthy plant. Then double up the thick seeds (with some separation) – if they both grow, you could either separate/transplant them when they get big enough or cut the weakest one to the ground.
Also, if you live in an area where you have lots of leaves falling in the Autumn season DON’T rake them all up!! MULCH them with a mower and use them in your garden. They provide lots of nitrogen for your soil ALSO rotate your crops!! don’t always be planting the same things in the same raised bed since different plants use different nutrients from the soil
Tweak to placement advice for harsh-summer gardening (I’m up in northern Utah where the winters are icy and the summers are dry and scorching, and this year in particular the heat wave and drought was absolutely brutal): Give your bolt-prone or otherwise more heat-sensitive plants more shade than typically suggested for them. I had FANTASTIC success this year with a bushy indeterminate tomato closer to the sunny side and kale behind it, the kale has lasted all season without any significant wilt issues and produced SO well, possibly the best out of anything in the garden this year with the possible exception of the amaranth (which has also been protecting my chard and spinach from the full force of a particularly hot and dry alpine-desert summer by being tall and shady). More generally, if you’re dealing with difficult conditions for something you want to grow (in my case, leafy greens in a scorching desert without a drip irrigation system or very much free time to spend hand-watering, but this is the abstraction level that’s applicable in a lot of directions), consider microclimates. A little extra shade can mitigate heat, a thermal mass like a large rock or a wall can mitigate cold weather and extend a short growing season, a slope or hill can mitigate slow-draining soil while a sunken area can gather more moisture — I’ve seen plants grown so far out of their hardiness zone, in terrible soil conditions for their native preferences that it almost looks like magic, with a good understanding and application of microclimates.
Here in Boise, Idaho, I have to shade my plants all afternoon during the hottest part of the day from 1 o’clock on because for three weeks out of the year, it gets 100° plus and it will kill anything that has afternoon sun. So tarps and sheets are laid across my plants every day and then I remove them around 6 o’clock in the evening. Kind of makes it so I can’t go on vacation in the summer but I get great yields.
Must Do List: #1 Need PH tester to test the soil. Check PH around certain plants due to needs are different. One size does not fit all. #2 Amend your soil during the growing season. #3 Don’t forget flowers to deter pests like marigolds stuck in between plants. #4 Compost Thermometer to check activity and finishing. If you are composting. #5 Prune plants during the season as needed when they grow in for air flow and proper care. #6 Don’t water too late in the evening – plant does not get a chance to dry – encourage plant fungus problems, mildew and mold.
I’ve been binging your articles the last couple of weeks. My teenage son & I got a small grant from a state run program Farm to School. The objective of the grants is to teach children about food gardening. So we have ordered a couple of small raised beds, soil, tools, and seeds. It’s an unfortunate time of the year for the program to be starting, but we got some seeds suited for fall. We should get our beds put together this weekend. We’re excited about it and your tips have been very helpful.
Amazingly enough I’ve done every one of those things this my first year. I have been reading and perusal articles for two years before I built my raised beds this year. Additionally I bought red wiggler worms to put in the beds. I only have space for 3 3’x8’ beds and a 150 gal tank that I’ve used for tomatoes the past 15 years. So I purchased 4000 worms to split between the beds. Last year I did put a few in the tank and when I took the soil out this year to move the tank there were still worms in that soil. I put the fresh scraps from salads and such in the soil to give worms food to break down into worm castings. It really doesn’t take long for the worms to break down the kitchen scraps either.
Thanks for all the helpful tips. I live in Oregon and have been gardening for over a decade. One mistake I learned is that you need to know what wildlife you have around and what they can potentially do to your garden. We live next to a creek with tall trees and have tons of squirrels in our yard. While they don’t eat my veggies, they do mess with everything and love to dig holes to bury their seeds in fresh soil. So now when I plant my spring garden I have to cover each bed with chicken wire which works great to keep the critters out. Just takes a little extra time and planning. Gardening is my happy place and I’m glad I found this website.
Cover crops are not just for covering the soil. Cover crops are actually used to inject nitrogen back into the soil through the nodules that are grown by the roots that store the nitrogen. You must cut in or mulch in the cover crop before it uses the nitrogen nodules to create flowers and seeds. Cover crops is a whole other article and super fun and important for gardening! 🙂
Winter is coming and I’m really glad I watched this or I’d never think to put mulch down to protect the soil. This was our first year doing a few felt planters and my kids absolutely loved it, so glad we took the steps to do it. We had to share a lot of our cucumbers and kale with the wildlife, but I think it’s okay since they can’t go to the grocery store and the caterpillars that ate our kale and grew to moths would fly and land on us all summer. It was really special 💕
All very good tips. I would also add to the last tip how important it is to rotate your crops from one to the next, and marking what you planted in each bed facilitates that. Plants have nutritional needs specific to that species, along with diseases that can persist through the year, especially in warmer climates. A couple of examples: corn or potatoes use a lot of nitrogen compared to other crops, while legumes put nitrogen back into the ground, so rotating these into the same bed will help balance the nutritional quality of the soil. As for diseases, tomatoes can contract viruses from a variety of external sources, and those viruses may persist in the soil for more than one season, which could infect your newly planted tomatoes as soon as you put them into the ground. Rotation will greatly decrease this potential threat to a new crop.
Something where planting large plants in front of small ones actually can work is with some herbs and leafy greens if you live far to the north. We’re a high enough latitude that it’s very difficult to grow lettuces, arugula, and herbs like basil for a lot of the summer, because the daylight is so extended that they bolt. I built squash trellises for butternuts a few years ago that were just two wire panels framed with stakes and leaned against each other like a tent. I don’t remember why, but I put several lettuce and herb plants between the trellises. Lo and behold, the lettuce and herbs continued to grow all summer, in spite of the heat, because they were under shade a significant part of the day. When the plants out in the sun were bolting, the ones under the trellises were not. There are definitely situations where it can be beneficial to plant short plants behind or under taller ones.
I am so happy to have watched this article! Thank you. I live in a very large property in Canada and have purchased the steel raised beds and am shaking in my boots in fear of failing. This was so helpful. You don’t know what you just don’t know until you learn. Now I won’t make these errors. Wish I had someone like you for set up though, lol. ❤️🇨🇦👍
I am SO grateful I stumbled upon this article this morning. I recently completely misunderstood what I read about orientation and I swore to my husband ten ways from Sunday that the garden needed to face North. I now understand what I heard and how I misunderstood, but if nothing else, this was a godsend. And also, we dug up some dirt from some hunting land we have and intended to use it as topsoil. We didn’t get a whole lot, fortunately, but you also helped us decide to just put it in the bottom of the beds and use our purchased top soil in our mix without the home-dug mixed in. So thank you!
I’ve built a couple of different types of raised beds which I still use, but just ordered my first Birdies 6-in-1’s from you and am looking forward to setting them up! One thing I do a bit differently from you is allowing more space between beds as I always want to be able to get a garden cart or wheelbarrow (or even a camp chair) between the beds and on my garden paths 🙂
These are great tips, thanks for sharing. One of my biggest problems, early on was special awareness…not knowing how far a plant will travel on it’s growth to maturity. Butternut squash for example should never be planted by the gate to enter your fenced in garden. In the same respect knowing cukes like to climb and giving them the room and support to do so will give you amazing yields!
Another great article Kevin. My tip would be to plan your bed layout for the mature plant size. Good plant spacing improves the air flow around your plants. That minimizes diseases, allows you to find pests and gives the plant the space and nutrients for optimal growth. A good resource for figuring out that spacing plan is Mel Bartholomew’s Square Foot Gardening books. Ps: can’t wait to try out my two new Birdies beds this spring.
Hi from North Yorkshire England. Thanks for 10 brilliant tips! One that springs to mind for me is that if you are planting a raised bed for permanent ornamental use is that soil naturally compacts over time so before you plant up, make sure you press your soil down at regular intervals when filling your raised beds otherwise even though it looks full when your done, you could lose a few inches in height after a few months and if you are growing alpines, that will be disastrous!
I have ducks and geese that free-range and get into everything. Last year I had a lot of success using recycled wood palates flat on ground then kiddie pools placed on top! The kids stabbed a hundred or more holes in them before we filled all of them with dirt, duck compost, shredded straw, worms, and tiny bits of decayed wood. Excellent way if your on a tight budget. We had everything laying around. And we used dollar store seeds. Didnt want to waste my good seeds yet just in case it didn’t work well… It works great to keep my birds and animals out. Also great for bug control. Creatures have a hard time getting up the sides of the slick plastic pool. Next season I want to upgrade to the kind of raised beds you have. The pools still work great for the kids garden! Thank you for all the wounderful tips. Love from a fellow Cali Skatergirl. 💕 ( Now transplanted in Washington state. So glad we moved here for the better climate & water 💧 supply).
“What we measure, we manage” … yes!!!! Absolutely love it! Different take on Drucker, but it still works! Thank you so much, Kevin. Your articles have helped a lot. I also used to watch the first few seasons of “Growing a Greener World,” and you mention Joe once in a previous article. I love to see just how connected we all are. Again, thank you.
There’s one thing I can say that has helped me immensely with my garden. Remember to fertilize weekly during the growing season. I did my first fertilization this season with a handful of steer manure in a bucket filled with about a gallon of water. I watered my crops once a week with tea to help them grow better. The next week I used a handful of my organic compost made from green and brown waste as well as earth worms in a compost pile… so a handful of black gold in a one gallon tub with a gallon of water, mixed in, to fertilize my garden once a week. The week after I used water from my tubs that I’ve been catching rain water in. The low ph is good for some crops like blueberries, strawberries, and spinach. After that it was waste water from my organic aquariums, high in nitrates, that I used to fertilize the garden. But every week during the growing season you should fertilize with a diluted fertilizer solution. I even cut up weeds from my garden, steep them overnight, and then use the tea to water my garden as a form of fertilizer before adding the solids to the compost bin. It’s been really good for my raised beds and container garden. I mulch with leaves and twigs from the trees in my garden, and I highly recommend you guys start doing that as well.
A couple weeks ago when the news showed farmers bulldozing entire tomato crops, we dusted off the planters and got as much as possible into trays in the window right away. We spent the past two weeks getting all the planters ready, and lots of things are sprouting in all the places. There can only be two gardening mistakes as far as I’m concerned, not starting a garden, and the above mentioned plowing under of perfectly good food!
I’ve found a 10th mistake is trying too hard to stick to a predetermined plan. I’m just starting raised gardening (in berms, not planters) and I spent an inordinate amount of time over this past winter deciding what crops to plant in which order and which location. Fast forward to “it’s time to build these garden berms”, and I’ve come to the realization that I was overcomplicating things. I adjusted my build plan to take on a simpler, but what I believe to be more-effective, construction. Had I insisted on “I don’t want my plans to be for naught!” then I’d probably end up doing much more work than is necessary, and the results would likely have been less successful. It’s a bit like what Eisenhower said: “Plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” I still had a good basis of research under my belt thanks to my original plan, and with some recent new information I was able to adapt my original plan and (hopefully) make it even more successful.
Love this article. I have made some of these mistakes and I hope I have learned from them. There are couple of things I would add here. First make sure that your boxes are deep enough to hold an adequate amount of soil for your plant’s root balls. It has been my experience that boxes that are 14 to 18 inches deep work best (my 8 inch deep boxes were not a big success). Second, rotate your crops. Don’t plant the same thing in the same boxes time after time as the soil will become depleted of the nutrients necessary to maintain that particular crop. I like to let the soil in my boxes rest by putting a thick layer of grass clippings on top and then watering once a week or so to aid in the composting process. Before planting again I like to turn the soil and add amendments appropriate to the planned crop. But be careful what you add to the soil. I added some wonderful stuff that we raked out from under our juniper bushes. Unfortunately it was full of palm seeds from the nearby trees. We had a huge crop of glorious tomatoes in amongst the hundreds of little palm trees that sprouted up around the tomato plants. I learned the hard way to screen out the palm seeds before using the compost collected under the juniper plants.
I planted many trees years ago around the border of my yard for privacy, shade and noise abatement. Years later I made 6 4×8 garden boxes south side of the house and a built a nice greenhouse. Lived in the house for 22 years and now the trees are doing there job especially in the shade department as some of the boxes used to get full sun now get partial which really changes what you can plant. I moved one box as a burr oak basically blocked it out of the sun. I love my trees so I cant trim them down. The nice thing is boxes can be moved!. I would add to your list that over time trees might grow and shade out some garden locations. I really enjoy your articles keep up the good work!
We just planted our first raised bed last weekend and although I didn’t watch your article I feel pretty confident that we’ll have a decent season after hearing of these mistakes! Random note: This was a recommenced article for me and I didn’t notice when this article was posted but I found it interesting to see a passerby walk by wearing their mask 😷 Goes to show you that’s how we’ll be able to recognize content that was posted during this crazy time in history!
Excellent. Two points – when the bed has no plants in remember the earth worms, don’t let the soil dry out and the worms die, they are part of having a successful crop in future. Think about what you will need to do to protect your vegetables against birds if you garden where that could be a problem. I had a whole bed of spinach wiped out in one day and can only grow them in a caged situation where I live. The birds leave the celery alone so that is okay in the open but tomatoes are vulnerable.
This is amazing @epic gardening!! I am from Melbourne trying to stay at home to help with CoVID 19. But what inspires me is the environmental sustainability of gardening and the mediation side of the act of planting and perusal them grow. Love to hear what other Melbourians on here and what are on your JULY planting list.
Great article, thanks. I had friends decide to “help” me by filling my new raised beds with some dirt they were getting rid of. It was very loose and dry and even had trash and glass in it. When I said I wanted to replace it because, well, why start a beautiful garden with bad soil? So I looked up your article. Good to know my common sense was on the right track. I will remove 2/3 and replace 1/3 with my local soil and 1/3 with compost, at least thats my start but I will keep adding good stuff to the soil.
I’m glad the sun is up almost all night in the summer here, since my growing space is a west-facing balcony with a permanent wall at the south side of it. It’s far from ideal, but it will have to do for now. Also: last frost date here is usually around beginning of june, and first frost date around the beginning of september, so… I’m pretty glad if I manage to get anything at all, and mostly grow things for the sake of having an outdoor green space to poke at and learn from. I already have some swiss chard outside under cover, mostly to see what happens. They’ve been out for a couple of weeks now, and seem to be doing well, even with quite a few frost nights.
There are so many YouTube gardeners now it makes my head spin! Even though I’m in zone 4b in Quebec, Canada, I have learned more from you in every aspect of gardening then all the others I’ve watched. That’s not to say they aren’t great…I just like the way you you explain it. So thank you for all the amazing content 😀
I don’t have a raised bed, I used the soil my house came with. My mistake starting out was not testing that soil. Last year I did test it and find that it was low on phosphorus and had too high of pH. I was able to correct that with a little sulphur and some bone meal. I had better yields for doing so. I would advise that if you use plain ol’ dirt, test it, or send it to your local university if possible
Thanks for your helpful tips! One thing I would recommend is to put plants with similar nutrient needs in the same raised bed or container. I made the mistake of planting morning glory flowers in the same container as my leafy herbs. I fertilized to support the herbs with a nitrogen-rich fertilizer. They did amazingly, but the morning glories put out a profusion of green leaves, climbed to the roof of my deck and did not produce a single flower!
I have never planted a thing in my life and started with a Vegepod and raised beds (positioned on a concrete slab roof). Needless to say I have made every possible error I could. I have had caterpillars, aphids, fungal gnats and curly grubs (bush turkeys, possums and bandicoots). I have spent more than $2000 and have just learnt that my soil is all wrong, among other things. It is extremely discouraging. Your tutorials, however, have given me hope. You explain things so simply and I have to tell myself I will learn from all these mistakes so I must continue. Thank you for your very helpful tutorials. Ellipop.
Totally made the soil mistake. I put too much faith in the quality of my local gardener’s store “raised bed mix.” My plants were all super nitrogen deficient!!! They were very yellow and stunted, but I noticed in time so I was able to amend it by adding dilute urine a few times. This fall I plan to add some high quality compost and mulch to help improve the soil quality for next year. A disappointing mistake, to be sure, but glad it was something I could correct in time to still have a productive garden this year!
Okay, thanks. I wasn’t going to go work in my garden … now I am. Had no motivation … now I do. Doesn’t matter what happens with it, I’ll have good success when I just get going! Here’s a plan / tip for people who have a larger growing space, and less control over the type of weeds and volume of weeds that come our way during the year. Obviously, the first and most important way to control weeds is “mulch, mulch, mulch!” makes a huge difference. This tip is one I’ve never seen anyone share before, though: CHOOSE YOUR WEEDS. Over the past four years in my garden plot, in a Midwestern climate where a weed will pop up every single hour on a warm July day, I’ve come to favor Oxalis, a low-growing weed that is easy to remove and can occupy a lot of sun-space that other weeds would like to get their hands on. Grass weeds? Out they come. Milkweed? Leave three, pull the rest. Dandelions? Out with their cores! Oxalis? Hang out a while, go to seed, pardon my trimming of your edges. Smartweed is also no big deal, but it’s taller, so when it comes up in a corner, “Hello!” I won’t get too aggressive until it gets on top of something else. The idea of cultivating least-harm weeds is not too different from cultivating a cover crop, except that weeds have one excellent quality that not all cover crops have; they’re WEEDY. They fight to be there and they thrive under all local conditions. So while I have to nip them out of my crops’ way, they’re also covering the soil and leaving their roots to dissolve in the ground every year, without my having to worry about caring for them.
What a great article I think I probably made everyone of those mistakes and one point or another and maybe still making some but thanks for your honesty and wisdom. Your experience helps us all not to possibly make them and I or we appreciate that. Not sure how your plants look so good after that crazy week long storm we just recently had but thanks again. Nice to see someone from my hometown giving out props. Peace bud.
THANK YOU SO MUCH! 😊 I’ll be attempting my first raised garden at my new house. In the past, I lived in condo and apartments, which left me with minimal have space for planting and therefore I didn’t. HOWEVER, I was able to plant and control an herb garden that I grew in a nice sized container that I placed in my kitchen window. Now, I live in a beautiful home that sits on close to 13 acres – TONS of space to grow. 😍 Wish me luck ❤️
Thank GOD that if you DO screw up your garden for a season you aren’t going hungry ya just head on down to the local produce stand or grocery store. How BLESSED are we in this country even with EVERYTHING that is going on in the world. Count your blessings daily give to those in need and pray for the ones you can’t physically help. If God cares for the sparrow you know he cares for us✌️🤟
Thank you for this article. I like your approach to grow wherever you can, because we don’t always have the choices we want, but we still have choices. These tips have super payback potential. I do get lazy, or absent minded about mulching and it really takes a toll mid season. I also like the tip is planning based on sunlight path.
Your articles are so helpful! I was wondering if you could make a article to go more in depth about how to winterize and amend soil – you talk about it in this article and I get the concept of winterizing soil (great to know!) but I’m not sure how to amend soil and some examples of how to do that would be super helpful, thank you!
i am 24 and i just started gardening in my studio apartment with a couple indoor raised beds and stackable planters! i do not have a balcony but i do have a south-ish facing window which allows much sunlight, however it’s mostly cloudy where i live for the most part and my crops & plants get very little sunlight for the most part 🙁 however my radish, carrots & buttercup squash seem to be growing pretty nicely! thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and i can’t wait to see what i learn to grow next!
So useful! Thank you. I had left my raised bed unattended for about two years. It was derelict – full of grass roots and barren soil. Because of Covid, there weren’t many garden supplies around. I used bentonite powder on my soil plus compost to bring it back to life.I live in an arid area in Australia. Lots of sun and not much rain. I also couldn’t get any bug sprays because of Covid, so I used some homeopathics on the garden and they were amazing! I have problems with mulch as it never breaks down due to how dry our climate is. Does anyone have thoughts on this issue? I’m rethinking where my garden should be as I really liked your description of the sun going over the garden. In winter, mine got no sun, so I might move it now we are going into spring.
I’m really surprised theres so many thumbs down for this article, all of the tips are bang on. I think I’ve made all of the mistakes here at one point or another and they really are mistakes. Before I planted up my current garden I watched the ground for a whole year, taking note of where and when the sun falls month by month, 1st and last frosts, cold spots, wet spots, prevailing winds, where the slugs hide, where the birds perch, what pests are active and when. You might think its nonsense or overkill but when you’ve redesigned your garden as many times as I have you know it’s worth the effort. He made a good point on planting dates. For things like carrots that’s really important. You can’t often see them, but leave them too long and they become woody and a little tasteless. There really isn’t such a thing as too much effort, it just has to be balanced with time availability. As I always say, it’s not about whether you make mistakes, but what you do about them that defines us. Remember, “you only truly fail when you give up” (Albert Einstein).
An absolute essential if living in an arid, hot climate, is some sort of shade covering. The lightest shade cloth you can find. It will make all the difference. Otherwise those raised beds, become ovens to cook tender roots, and you go through so much water just to keep things alive – but they won’t produce much of anything to harvest. Taste bitter, etc. So just get the shade cloth.
Especially if you plant something like tomatoes I recommend putting layers of material in your raised bed. I put in a layer of bigger sticks/wood in as a first layer (ask you neighbours in spring, they’ll provide this for free). Then some chopped sticks, cuttings from bushes (usually you get this also for free). Then some natural soil from your property. Topping this off with some bagged garden soil and or buyed or own compost as final layer. The sticks provide drainage and longerm they*ll decompost and give nutriens (your tomatoes roots will reach this layer before). The chopped matreial will keep moisture and break donw faster (this will provide nutriens when the nutriens from compost layer get lower). The soil/compost layers will be the matreial your plants start with. This provide enough water and nutriens for the start of your plants. This kind of filling is little bit work intensive but you get perfect conditions for your plants for very little money. In addition you mainly use renewable and cheap sources.
Great article Kevin! All your tips are well grounded! (Pun intended) One other tip I think may be important for some people is getting the right sized bed. Some folks build their beds way too big and they can’t reach all their plants without stepping into the bed. 🥴🥬🥒 Thanks again for all these wonderful articles….. and many blessings for an amazing gardening season!
Built my U shaped raised beds with about a 30″ wide gap, to accommodate a wheel chair. I do not currently NEED a wheel chair, but looking forward if we decide to stay in our current home in to retirement, that may be a possibility. It allows plenty of room to get a wheel barrow in, and dump the dirt or clean out dead plants after harvest. Love your tips…keep them coming!
Some easy peasy stuff: stay on top of weeds, do a little every day. Don’t over or under water and don’t over or under fertilize. Make sure the fertilizer you use is best for the type of plant, flowers, trees and vegetables need different mixes. Compost is best but you may have to supplement. You can get the soil tested if you want to be really precise.
Another good article, thanks, the big mistake I made a few years ago was building my one raised bed 10′ x 10′ as there was not a good way to work it without climbing in it….just this past fall I spent a few days turning it into two long 42″ x 16′ beds with three feet in between for a wheelbarrow….I can now work both sides of each box easily. Huge difference, same amount of wood as I went from a two food deep box to two one foot deep boxes. I did have some extra soil which I spread in the main garden. Thanks and cheers!
I am new to gardening have made every mistake you have mentioned. Listening to your tips has answered some of my mistake issues, thank you! I have spent hours on You Tube trying to find answers and tips to improving my gardening. I love your garden beds they are just a bit out of my price range. Maybe one day I will be able to afford a couple. In the meantime, I will keep working on improving my gardening skills. Again, thank you for all your great tips.
I love this article! You personally even overcame my SoCal bias (I’m from the PNW and California is a curse word here). This is great info. I’ve had a few gardens over the years with mixed success. Your tips are all spot-on. I’m planning on finally building a raised bed garden to raise “Taco crops” (white onion, radish, cilantro, red cabbage, etc) and pickle crops (pickling cukes, dill, maybe some garlic, etc). I’m pushing 60 y/o and after 15 years in the Army and 20 years in construction my back and knees are shot so I need to do raised bed. Because I live out in the country we have lots of deer, rabbits, skunk, raccoons, possum and many species of birds, that love to raid gardens. I’m planning on building a horseshoe shaped garden with 8′ high fencing around it this winter. And while I knew about south facing, your article actually made me realize that that I need to build the garden 180 deg orientation from how I had planned on building it so that I can put the tall plants in back and work down to the shorter plants on the south side. That tip alone probably saved me years of aggravation. So a sincere thank you! I’m now a subscriber. Keep up the great work!
Gee, year #2 here and I’ve made lots of these. For me, keeping track of labeling was becoming a real issue. Specifically what kind of tomato for example. I started using different colored or patterned duct tape corresponding to each. So on popsicle stick or like, I just make a bunch with each of the six different colors and then I don’t have smeared, squiggles of writing that have to be looked at closely to be able to tell.
Two other mistakes to avoid. First, don’t plant food that someone in your household doesn’t eat, especiallyif they do more cooking than you. An exception would be a trial quantity so they get the chance to try it fresh. Second don’t grow plants in the same bed if they have radically different needs for fertilizer or water.
I live in Vancouver, Canada and I think there’s one extra thing I would share; be prepared for wild animals. Mouse will eat anything if they are hungry (they pulled out my chives and ate it all). Some Squirrel may “mark” your garden as their washroom (check the poo shape on google). Raccoon or skunk may plow through your soil looking for food…. Set up a camera. Make some effort to deter critters, or at least have a plan if they show up. Their activity become a lot more frequent towards end of summer. Pick your fruits early. Throw away the ones that won’t make it. If you park your car nearby and you leave that tomato plant there after season, you gonna find lots of green tomato and poo under your hood, right on your engine.
Mistakes from my first raised beds. 1. Add an insufficient amount of soil. You should always expect the soil to lower a few inches after the first few waterings. 2. Wait a few weeks before planting if you’re adding potting mix soil into the bed. Potting mix has seeds already in their soil and will germinate once watered.
Hi Kevin, I’ve been following you for the last several months as I’ve been installing my own raised vegetable garden, and your articles have been really insightful. I have a question regarding drainage; I’m using 128 gal galvanized water troughs from a farm supply retailer. They’re 5x2x2’ and they have a drainage source that I’ve used to run my main irrigation line through and up to the top of the soil, instead. Do the raises beds need drainage outlets? I was thinking of drilling holes abound the bottom of my beds to allow for that but is it necessary? I’m concerned about root rot.
Hi! Loving your articles, so helpful to a new gardener like myself! How would you recommend Fixing the bare soil over winter mistake? 😅 also, please tell me vermiculite in potting soil from a local quarry wasn’t a huge mistake. And we’re adding mulch but how much mulch should i add if I already have moisture retention mixed in?.. Just trying to see what’s lying ahead this season. 😅 thanks!
I made the equivalent of mistake #1 over 20 years ago when I created my square foot garden. I live on 6 acres of wooded land. At the time I had the area for the garden and pond cleared, put down a wood frame and actually my best year was my first. Each year following my results got worse.. After about 10 years I realized thel problem, the forest was encroaching on my garden. There is now nearly no sunlight on it. I had to make a decision to either cut down several 100 year old oak trees or give up my garden. I gave up the garden. And considering I have 6 acres of land, there is not one spot that gets a full 8 hours of sun a day. I was a novice gardener at the time, on my own, I could not foresee this happening, and to correct it now would be a very tough choice and cost several hundred dollars. I decided I rather put that money toward my future grocery store bills. The trees were here before me, they deserve to be here after me. So if you have a lot of trees, remember they grow in all directions.
Very good tips! I work at a non-profit with a community garden and will add that consider smaller (or at least narrower) beds. Our beds used to be 5×8 and it was really hard to reach the centre, especially for someone with limited mobility. We are slowly switching to 3×7 beds and its much easier to reach and work with. If you still want a large bed, just try to make it longer.
Hey, like your raised garden bed and your planning. Thanks for the tips! I’ve become more mindful of the possible heat transfer from the sides of the raised bed into the soil. I’m wondering/thinking about how to minimize this. I understand this can contribute to plants bolting near the end of cool season. Any thoughts on this?
Awesome thanks! I’m fairly new to this but grandparents taught me a lil ol school stuff when I was younger.. I’m gonna watch all these vids and learn this! I really want to learn how and be self sufficient especially these days when groceries are so high and shortages are just getting worse and worse unfortunately.. I want to grow the basics for my family! Thanks from Houston TX!
OMG, where have you been all my gardening life. I live in a small space with a small area to plant. All of my food did very poorly last year on the shade side of my house in raised beds. My tomatoes did fairly well in large containers on my deck but it rained alot in Michigan so a fair amount of them cracked; I hate that. I love the way your front yard looks. Where I live, it has to look very good in the front yard or they won’t allow you to do it. Thank You.
Overall a very helpful article, I am retired and started a backyard raised bed / breathable pouch’ s / wicking plastic tub’s garden and the main reason was the winter cold and I can overnight the plants in the garage and my major mistake was the labeling part, I get a little carried away, I also do self watering and honestly,I overwater except for the wicking tubs a automatic watering system is the way to go in a raise bed for sure !
great advice, and I agree with the other comment about filling the bottom with branches, small logs and a layer of wood shavings to fill in the bottom half of the planter, then top the other half with good quality soil and compost, *compost and mulch is super important for quality soil for plants to grow and produce well. Composting is an easy habit, and very environmentally responsible.
Omg, just subscribed because it amazes me that as I just started trying to care more for my little garden and recently found Garden Answer who has probably 10+ acres with one million subscribers and then I accidently stumbled on your website. You have a tiny little garden but have over a million subscribers as well 😱. I am totally impressed and plus I learned a whole lot from this second article of yours. Can’t wait to see the rest.
I did the exact same thing with the soil. It was aweful. Everytime it rained the soil got a hard crust. All they really brought was top soil. What a disappointment. My carrots were stuck like glue lol. So it’s time to get the garden started here in Ohio. I want to get the soil right. What should I add since it just sat all winter? I did leave some of the vegetation but that’s definitely not enough, I need compost. I just started my pile of it last winter so there’s not much. I really love your articles. Ohio has way different growing seasons but they are so helpful and easy to follow. Thanks so much for sharing. PS. My boyfriend set the garden up. I wanted 3 SECTIONS, which is what happened, but he connected them lol. Now I need to take it apart and leave the 2ft space. I’ve had 3 back surgeries so it’s definitely very difficult for me to tend like it is. The sections are 5×8 ft.
I don’t have advise for anyone since this will be my first year planting outside as I usually grow my food inside (half of my dinning room is dedicated to food plants and underwater plants lol). I am just excited to get started outside as it took a few years after we bought out house to control the complete over growth (the house was abandoned before) so now I’m ready and no one in my family gardens or has a knack for it. So I’m just hear to tell anyone who will read this that I am planting corn, Tomatoes, jalapeños, Pablanos, pumpkins, watermelons, cucumber, zucchini, kale, grapes, blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, elderberries, and lettuce. I know some of these will take years to start producing. I also have chickens this year so this will be great to let them fertilize the souls before I start planting outdoors. One thing I have a lot of is raccoons, bunnies and squirrels. Any advise on how to protect the plants from these animals would be great.
Just a quick comment on using wood chips as mulch. They’re a great thing to use, they let air & water through, and keep the soil nice and moist. One thing they DON’T do is take away nitrogen from your plants, unless you dig them into the soil where plant roots are growing. Lying on the soil surface, woos chips only use nitrogen in a thin layer where they touch the soil. So there’s no worry about them taking nitrogen away from your established plants. For young transplants or direct sowing seeds, on the other hand, pull the wood chips back a few inches from the transplants and seedlings. Young plants and seedlings have really shallow roots, so in that case, the wood chips might be using nitrogen in the soil surface where those young roots are growing. Once the plants have grown in a bit, you can replace the wood chips aroung them. Happy gardening!