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Kastle and other Raised Bed Gardeners
I actually have some space cleared in my backyard that will allow me to put a *small* raised bed in. We're talking maybe 6 ft long by 4 ft wide. I wanted to put in two 3 ft by 3 ft beds. Last year, I just did containers, so I'm new to the whole raised bed thing. So I have a few questions ...
Kastle - on your blog, I noticed you said your beds were "too deep." Can you explain how they are too deep? What do you think would work better for you? Did you have problems getting to all of your crops?
My next question is how many plants can you put in a 3 x 3 bed? I'd love for one of my 3 x 3 beds to be completely strawberries. I'm planning on keeping my tomato plants in a container - I'm going to order the Gardners' Supply Co Tomato Success kit for those. I plan on trying some lettuce, spinach, carrots, and okra this year. I'm still trying to decide on exactly what to plant, but I know for sure those 4 veggies. I'm still deciding to add for warmer weather. I know lettuce and spinach are cooler weather crops.
And what other veggies are good for warm weather?
"There's a very simple test to see if something is racist. Just go to a heavily populated black area, and do the thing that you think isn't racist, and see if you live through it." ~ Reeve on the Clearly Racist Re-Nig Bumper Sticker and its Creator.
Re: Kastle and other Raised Bed Gardeners
Make the bed just wide enough for you to reach the middle without straining or having to lean too far. Our beds are 5' wide and I can reach the middle no problem (but I'm 6').
I'd recommend a minimum of 15" between beds. We have 12" and that seems to narrow to me (i can't kneel down between them comfortably). If you have the space, go up to 18" or 20".
As far as how much can you grow, it depends on the crop.
I can get 2 tomato plants across, 2-3 collards, and 3-4 bean plants. This is also taking into account interplanting herbs and flowers. So a 5' square bed could hold probably 6 tomato plants, 13 collards or 18 bean plants. And you could interplant carrots, onions and garlic as well.
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Q1: I can only walk on one side of my beds. I'm 5.5 ft tall & it's hard for me to reach to the back row of the beds. If you're able to walk around your beds, 3' wide (or even 4') would be fine.
Q2: how much you can plant all depends on what you're planting. you may want to check out the Square Foot Gardening book...the back has a listing on how many plants/ft2. For example, peppers are 1/ft2, lettuce/spinach is something like 9/ft2, carrots are 16/ft2, etc.
Other warm weather are summer squashes, eggplant, cucumbers, corn (but I wouldn't recommend planting), swiss chard (also cool weather)...
I wouldn't do boxes deeper than 4' if you can reach on all 4 sides.
As for growing, you can actually do a couple crops a year in TN. I have onions, garlic and lettuce in the ground now.
I have a tonne of strawberries. They take 2-3 years to really get going. Also they spread. I started with about 25 strawberry roots and now I have over 100 and I gave a way a bunch of runners last year.
In a couple weeks I'll plant some potatoes and maybe carrots again.
Things that do really well in the heat are tomatoes, cukes, squash, etc.
I also have a lot of herbs. Cilantro is doing pretty well right now but it goes to seed right as my tomatoes are ripening. Rosemary can be left in the ground year round. Basil does really well in the heat. My basil comes back every year on its own from the seeds the previous year drops.
Definitely look at the UT extension website for what you can plant when. Also I recommend the Square Foot Gardening book. It is a good reference book.
University of Tennessee Agricultural Extension Service
For WI, you could use UWEX http://www.uwex.edu/ces/wihort/ or the U of Illinois http://web.extension.illinois.edu/state/hort.html
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