Grow Your Own Magazine

Hi there,
My 9 year old daughter and I are creating our first 'real' vegetable patch this weekend, our plot is 3m x 7m and has a concrete border with one edge bordered by a lawn (or will have after the weekend !).

My question is that I have seen many veg patches that are raised beds, is this essential and what are the advantages ?

The plot has a concrete bar about 10 inchs wide that runs right through the middle of the patch lengthways creating a nice walkway and meaning we effectively have two sections 1.5m x 7m.

Any advice ?

Hi there!

Raised beds are by no means essential - people build them for various reasons. In my case, it was because our garden soil is poor - typical new(ish) housing estate stuff, little more than rubble and subsoil with an inch or two of topsoil thrown on top. Fine if all you want is a lawn and some hardy shrubs, but not up to growing crops! Raised beds are also useful if you are in a colder area, as the soil in them warms up more quickly in the spring, or of course if you have problems bending you can make high raised beds.

More important are fixed paths - if you don't walk on the soil, you never need to dig it

I would put a second path in at right angles to the one you've got - 7m is a long way to walk, and the temptation will be to go across the soil instead, so you might as well make the cross-path permanent. Just some bricks or paving slabs will do, ideally over a strip of weed-suppressing ground cover. If you are not going to build raised beds, I would also sink a row of planking along the lawn-ward edge (so that the tops of the planks are at soil level), to prevent the grass from invading your plot.

Then you have all the fun of planning what to grow!

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Small Plot? No Problem! - my blog about growing organic veg

Thanks for that advice, the soil is good so that saves me from having to do more building and I have just removed huge numbers of paving slabs and weed suppressant matt stuff.

I will definately use it to build some pathways....