Raised Beds and Lasagne Gardening

Lots of information on here. Have a look at TwoSheds posts and photos.

Our raised beds are double height Linkabord - maybe 12" deep? But not quite filled to the top - you'll need huge amounts of soil or compost to fill them with... I tried a mini lasagne thing with layered cardboard and green stuff, laid over very rough grass and weeds, and although still weedy and not really ready to plant immediately in the spring, was a whole lot better than the rest of the area around it. Use the search box (or advanced search) at the top of the page to find previous posts, there've been lots of discussions about these topics as RL says. If you then have specific questions which haven't been answered, post again . I have to be honest, I don't always find the Search the easiest to use and I tend to get very random results from it, but that's probably just me being hopeless .

Have never tried it Mumbles but there are a few threads here:

http://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gra...earchid=311052

What organic materials can you get hold of? If you can only get hold of muck then do raised beds with that. If you can get a large amount of various then go lasagna.

Now that it's a criminal offence to suggest that one uses the search button ...

or to suggest that one uses a common search engine to do a search ...

Here are a few from the archives:

http://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gra...ant_75308.html

http://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gra...eds_71091.html

http://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gra...hod_53906.html

http://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gra...mag_25863.html


That's precisely what raised beds are for: enabling you to grow crops on rubbish soil.

The lasagne method is also known as sheet mulching. It's a very quick, easy way to turn a patch of rubbish soil into a productive growing area.
Saves a whole lot of back-breaking digging & shovelling of compost. You just make the compost where you need it (in layers). Then you finish off with a layer of friable (fine) topsoil, which can be topsoil from good loam, or molehill soil, or purchased compost.

Over time the layers will rot and the level will sink, which you then top up with ordinary garden compost.

That's up to you. The higher the sides are (I assume you're using wood?) the more filling you'll need, although you don't need to fill the bed all at once.

Crops will grow down to utilise the "rubbish" soil too, so give the base a thorough forking over to aid drainage.

How deep? How deep/long is your biggest veg going to be? If a parsnip is 9", then make your bed about 9" deep.

Our beds at school (flick thru the album)

are different depths, and one of them we didn't fill with compost at all, we left it as "rubbish soil" and boy it was rubbish: everything stopped growing & died soon after planting.

Our deepest bed is probably 20" , and it's too deep. The weight of compost keeps pushing the walls out and collapsing them.
6" is high enough for us, we manage to grow lots in them. You have to try it for yourself really, it all depends on what your particular soil is like, and only you know that by trying it.

I don't know about lasagne but there are some tips on the height of raised beds on:
How to build a raised bed with railway sleepers
It seems that people build raised beds in lots of different ways, whether for veg beds or school flower beds. There's lots of ideas and inspiration here!
Raised bed projects with Railway sleepers
Good luck and good gardening!

It's not you being hopeless, Kathyd, but the GYO Search facility which is fairly limited. But not a problem, the way round it is to use Google and make the first search term "growfruitandveg.co.uk"
or even
"www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/grapevine"
and then add the word/s you're searching such as "lasagne".
Google will then give you accurate detailed references from the GYO site!
If there are a lot of them it may also offer you "More references" and if you click that you'll get, surprise surprise, even more references from the GYO site!
"Enjoy!" (as they insist on saying in naff restaurants....)

^ he's right, our Search function on here is pretty much useless.

I now use g00gle, but slightly differently from above. I type "grapevine" before what I'm looking for, eg "lasagne", then I click on "discussions" from the drop-down box at the top of the g00gle page.

The link I put on #4 as you can see came from using the vines search facility, I just went into advanced search & selected titles for Lasagne. It wasn't difficult at all.

Ssshh BM - your link doesn't work

*splutter over keyboard* LOL

I don't think he's noticed yet

Bu99er.......... it did work for a while.............ah well, bang goes my theory.

You don't need to put sides on your beds; we just mound up the soil. It means we can be flexible about the shape and size of the bed and if anyone trips up, they might take out a plant but they don't hurt themselves. And they can kneel down on the soil without having to avoid wood.