Do Raised Beds Really Matter?
We’ll get into the nerdy details about raised beds in a minute, but here’s the plain and simple truth: people whose gardens are set up in a comfortable way actually enjoy spending time in their gardens! When you spend time in your garden – guess what - your garden thrives!
The most important reason we use raised beds in our garden designs is actually pretty simple: raised beds are more comfortable and functional than other ways of gardening.
Although you really only need about 18” of quality soil to grow just about anything you want to grow in Houston, our most popular bed height is 2’ because when a bed is 2’ tall, bending and squatting are not required when harvesting, planting, and tending your garden.
Raised beds are also important for soil drainage, temperature regulation, soil health, and reducing pest pressure.
Soil drainage: plants love water, but they do not like to sit in it. Raised beds helps pull excess water off of plant roots.
Temperature regulation: raised beds actually heat up faster in the spring and stay warmer during winter. This means plants in raised beds have a head-start on growing in the spring (the soil gets warmer quicker in a raised bed than in the ground) and the soil is warmer in the winter. Bonus: it’s also a lot easier to cover raised beds with frost cloth before a hard freeze.
Soil health: the soil in Houston stinks (literally, have you smelled it?). Houston soil is nutrient depleted and has a very high clay concentration. To be honest, it probably has a lot of other contaminants in it as well (think about how many times Houston has flooded and how gross the flood waters are – um, yuck). Gardening in raised beds helps control one of the most important elements of a healthy garden and ecosystem – the soil. Our raised beds are filled with our unique blend of compost and soil creating a nutrient rich, organic growing environment for plants.
Reducing pest pressure: you’d be surprised how much simply raising beds off the ground and placing them on gravel helps to reduce the amount of unwanted pests in a garden. Want an organic garden? If so, the proper set up is vital for success. Raising beds off the ground not only keeps the garden safe from obvious critters in our back yard (dogs, etc.) it also reduces the amount of bugs and small garden pests as well.
If you’re wanting an organic vegetable garden that you actually enjoy spending time in, don’t skimp on your garden beds!
HELPFUL LINKS
Want to learn to garden? In Monarch Garden Society we help Houston-area gardeners go from confused about growing in our area, missing important planting deadlines, and wasting precious time and money to feeling confident, eating more from their garden, and saving valuable time and resources!
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