Any Raised Bed or Square Foot gardeners out there?

Let me know about your experiences!

once I get better from being sick and I have things setup I will find out but I've sort of done it in square pots (not 1 square foot kind though but smaller) and its not bad for herbs. I haven't tried it with any thing else though but it would be interesting to do it all out.

Raised beds are awesome. Heats the soil quicker so you can pla t a little sooner and tends to be weedles the first year, portable as well. They tend to dry out quicker than planting in the ground so be prepared to water frequently.

I have 600 sqf in raised beds growing veggies and indoors I've been "square foot gardening" since before the term came to pot growing. I flower in 1.1 cubic ft. milk crates with plastic bags as a liner. These pics are from 2001-2004

What would you like to know?

I've grown some veggies with a raised bed. The biggest trouble I had was with critters that burrowed under the frame. If you have occasional moles, etc., I would recommend putting down dome sort of barrier under the raised bed to prefent this. That's what I have now, but it was a PITA to put it in AFTER I had the beds set up.

luv raised beds , they make feeding easy and keep the soil moist on the hot summer days , and if you got pest problems Nite next time you can lay down some chicken mesh at the bottom before you add the soil

Yep. That's what I did... no problems since. TY

raised beds are tough to keep watered. heavy mulching is required. and never, ever turn your soil. fork it. been gardening raised beds a long time. fed myself thru college.
check out, "Sroggy's 2012 Garden." stop by any time.

I've had great luck with large smartpots, which are essentially raised beds:

Too lazy to separate out the smart pot pics but they worked great. Those are 65g and I ended up with 8' tomatoes and a shit ton of basil, eggplant, kale... from them.

Last year's garden -

smokinrav said:

I have 600 sqf in raised beds growing veggies and indoors I've been "square foot gardening" since before the term came to pot growing. I flower in 1.1 cubic ft. milk crates with plastic bags as a liner. These pics are from 2001-2004

What would you like to know?

Click to expand...

Do you add plastic or anything to keep dirt from spilling out the sides of the milk crate or does it happen naturally with the pressure of the dirt? Any problems with roots being exposed to lights? Or is it like a natural air prune?

he said he lined the crates with plastic bags

missnu said:

he said he lined the crates with plastic bags

Click to expand...

Good lookin' out. I suppose I could try to read more, but I'm being a delinquent at work so I have to be ninja about it.

The biggest PITA is poking holes after the dirt has gone in. Can't do it before hand. But that's a one time chore. After that, these planters are a joy to work with.

I built my first raised beds this year. This is one of them. Just planted some strawberries in and some raspberry bushes from a friend of mine. The rest of that bed is part shade..Mustard Green seedlings will be going in there by Sunday. I raised mine 12" off the ground and laid a few inches of wood chips and mulch on the bottom with landscaping tarp underneath. We have clay soil and our neighbor's all use PLENTY of RoundUP....so I wasn't taking any chances lol.

Seems like a lot of people are confused about Square Foot Gardening. Its based on a raised bed, but it's not the same as regular raised bed gardens. Mel the author of SFG is very specific about his soil, about spacing, size of the raised bed, growing vertical, watering by hand, using a grid on top of the bed, and most importantly, growing without fertilizers. He also doesn't use worms in his garden and in fact, worms tend to not live very long in the beds because of his mix, but the plants thrive none the less.

I like his system for it's ease of use, so I have one SFG right now but there are other amazing styles of gardening including hugelkultur gardening, lasagna gardening, and keyhole gardening. All of these are worth researching of your into organic gardening and want a raised bed.

SFG is an actual concept? I had no idea. I just thought I was doing it by using cubic foot planters. Learn something new every day. Thanks for the info, I'm off to google more.

Here's Mel, the author talking about his SFG method. I highly recommend his book. I've read it front to back about three times now.

[video=youtube_share;pBr8BQerN1U]http://youtu.be/pBr8BQerN1U[/video]

Vindicated said:

Here's Mel, the author talking about his SFG method. I highly recommend his book. I've read it front to back about three times now.

Click to expand...

Well, turns out Mel and I are peas in a pod. I have been high intensity gardening in my raised beds for 5 years now.
I never plant according to the packet. I ignore all spacing advice, from rows to individual plants. I know the power of my dirt, I mixed all 600 cubic feet of it by hand. It is so much more productive than any similarly spaced traditional graden it blows people away.

Yea, that's the way I'm planting as well. I kinda thought you were supposed to sfg when using raised beds. It would seem kinda silly to plant in a row with all that space, not to mention it's off the ground. However I only planted 1 or 2 carrot seeds per hole, I wasn't aware that i could put 3 seeds in one hole and not have to thin them out.

I don't think people consider enough the advantages of super loose, custom made, well draining soil outdoors. It is so important to good root growth, which drives everything else.