growing veg in raised beds

kethry

ok a question for those who've grown in raised beds before.. which i haven't!

i'm looking at the instructions for sowing various seeds/planting various plants. They all give instructions for how far apart to plant the plants, e.g. 15cm apart, 20 cm, and so on.

My question is: do i have to give it 15 cm (or whatever it says) from the edge of the raised bed? or can i plant closer? do i have to stick to the 15cm between each plant? can i get a lil closer with some plants? The reason i ask this is because i've read that raised beds are better for productivity because you can get more out of the space (and i don't have a lot of space, just three 1 by 3 metre beds), but they (they being gardening books) don't explain WHY productivity is better... which doesn't make sense, unless you can plant the plants closer than the 15 cm from the edge of the bed - in a non raised bed, you'd have to plant further back in order to keep "off" the path, as it were.

i hope that makes sense and someone understands what i'm asking!

keth
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scrimperjan

Yes, you can plant things closer together in a raised bed, and you can also plant close to the edges, but watch out for the edges drying out quickly in hot weather. Depending on the crop you can plant at maybe half the distance it says on the packet, though obviously things like courgettes still need a lot of room or they will swamp other plants - they always grow bigger than you think they will, and I would give one courgette plant the full width of a bed (or maybe grow it in another part of the garden). Also you may get smaller plants, for example with onions the closer you plant them the smaller they grow, but unless you want to enter a giant onion competition that isn't a bad thing! For leafy things like lettuce, spinach and cabbage you can plant very close and then thin out every other plant (and eat it of course) to give the remaining plants more space.

kethry

thanks scrimperjan, that makes a lot of sense - and now means i can start planning my garden with gusto!

Courgettes aren't a problem (or at least, not in that sense). They're going in pots/gro-bags, either in the greenhouse or dotted around the garden, along with tomatoes, aubergines, peppers, chillis.. just about every windowsill in my house is chock-a-block with seedlings!!

thanks!

keth
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Lord_Gardener

Sarah Raven (G World) is doing a series in the Telegraph at the moment on growing veg 'the Veg Patch'. You can read it online here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/portal/main.jhtml?startVal=1&searchDone=true&resSetSize=10&hitCount=68&grid=A1&view=SEARCH&advSearch=true&advanced=&_DARGS=/core/search2/portalAdvancedSearch.jhtml.15_A&_DAV=

Biddyrolo

You can also use the square foot method quite successfully in raised beds, this is the method I tend to use.

https://www.squarefootgardening.com (if you haven't come across it before)

kethry

Lord_Gardener wrote: »

Sarah Raven (G World) is doing a series in the Telegraph at the moment on growing veg 'the Veg Patch'. You can read it online here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/portal/main.jhtml?startVal=1&searchDone=true&resSetSize=10&hitCount=68&grid=A1&view=SEARCH&advSearch=true&advanced=&_DARGS=/core/search2/portalAdvancedSearch.jhtml.15_A&_DAV=

Yup i love Sarah Raven: got her "Great Veg Plot" book.. i actually sat down last night after this was posted and worked out a nice spreadsheet with a list of all the seeds i have, with the different final planting distances reckoned for each plant - from the back of the packet to the three books i have from the library to some cards that my mom bought me (file cards with 1 card for each plant). There's some small differences but i feel a bit more reassured that i can get everything into the beds that i need to get in. The biggest problem is going to be pots, not so much space for them, as actually buying the pots - i'm going to need a fair few at this rate..

if anyone's interested there's a rough plan of the garden here along with a list of what i'm growing in my three beds.

thanks, Biddyrolo, i'll check that page out - it looks interesting!

keth
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Mr_Warren_2

Carrots grow VERY well in raised bed. Just had some last night that had overwintered in the soil. Never bothered to thin them out and they were all quite descent sizes.

malamala

Hi, I am a complete novice in gardening.

I am fascinated about Square Foot Gardening, but is there any crop I should avoid?

Right now I have lettuce, Purple Sprouting Brocolli, Aubergine, Tomato, Pepper and Spaghetti Squash seedings in the conservatory. Was planning to grow Tomato and Pepper in growing bags.

What kind of wood do you use for the borders? We have quite a lot of wood left over and hope we could use them. I know we should not use treated wood, so what shall we use?

We have a longish garden which has good soil (the previous owner grew many veg), but was not cared for for about 2 years. It was like a 'jungle' when we moved in, but we got rid of most it before winter. Now there are weeds and some grass scattering around. Square Foot Gardening seems a great idea as we can do bit by bit without too much hard work in one go.

Any advice appreciated.

BUBBLES_3

This may sound a bit techy but thirty years ago the National Vegetable Research Station did a study on "deep bed" growing which eventually become raised beds. They published two books on their findings called "Know & Grow Vegetables. The principle as expalined is to make beds 1200mm wide so the middle can be reached from both sides. You should never walk on the beds except when winter digging. The soil becomes very deep and vegetables are able to penetrate and thus have greater access to neutrients. The plants can be set at closer spacings as directed by the book and so get more from available space.
As stated in an earlier post if you want to cook with small onions say 50mm dia. then space them at 100mm. Similar for cauliflowers. eg 100mm dia cauli space at 200mm. Each individual plant may be small but the weight from the sq metre will be greater than if planting for individual size.
The main reason for growing plants in "Rows" I believe is so you can access them. Plants generally do not grow like that in the wild! Deep beds can allow you to plant 'domino' style. Farmers plant in beds as denoted by the tractor grows you can see in the fields. Ill shut up now but hope it helps.