Buyers’ Guide Elevate your planting with an easy raised bed kit
Does your soil let you down? Geoff Hodge offers some raised bed solutions for happier, healthier plants
Raised beds are the answer to all sorts of soil woes. If your sod is far from the perfect ‘friable loam’ you see on TV gardening programmes, simply install raised beds, then fill them with better topsoil, enriched with bulky organic matter, and all your problems are solved. This is ideal for gardeners faced with solid clay that becomes a quagmire in winter and concrete in summer, or those with light sandy soil, who find themselves watering parched plants daily in summer. With raised beds you can get round pH problems too: if you garden on solid chalk (which is alkaline) but hanker for acidloving plants such as camellias, acers, magnolias, heathers and raspberries, you can fill your raised beds with ericaeous compost and grow these calcifuges (lime haters) to your heart’s content. For gardens on the small side, raised beds offer the chance to create a neat and efficient vegetable growing environment, where you can harvest crops at a convenient knee height. They’re also perfect for gardeners with mobility issues who are unable to fully bend down or kneel, for wheelchair users and anyone who prefers to garden from a sitting position.
No-dig system
The best way to cultivate raised beds is by the no-dig system. As its name suggests, you don’t need to dig over the soil. Provided the beds have been filled with good quality soil or soil/organic-matter mix, all you need do is top them up with extra organic matter once a year. Do this in autumn, and you won’t even have to work it into the soil yourself – worms will do that for you! Just remember not to walk on the soil or you’ll compact it. This has an adverse effect on soil structure and its fertility.
Size and orientation
For best results, align your beds on a north-south axis to make sure they receive even sunlight. Don’t make them too long, otherwise you’ll be walking a long way around to fully cultivate them. For this reason it’s better to have more smaller beds than just a few big ones. The ideal length is 1.8-2.4m (6-8ft), but 90cm-1.2m (3-4ft) square beds also work well and a width of 1.2m (4ft) allows you to lean in from both sides to cultivate them easily. Make paths between the beds about 45cm (18in) wide for wheelbarrow access. A range of accessories are available such as frames to support polythene sheeting (to raise temperatures beneath), fleece (to keep off cold weather and pests), mesh netting (to protect against larger pests) and plant supports for tall crops. You can even buy glazed cold frames and winter covers.