(This article is taken from a the series ‘Raised Bed Gardens’ by Gardening-coaches.com and is used with permission) 

Making a raised bed garden isn’t rocket science and it doesn’t require superhuman effort. It is fairly simple, low cost, but requires lots of work the first time you do it. The preliminary work to create a deep, prepared bed does pay off in succeeding years. You have healthier soil, healthier plants and a more productive garden. 

Let’s look at the steps… 

1) Loosening and cleaning up the soil. 

The first order of business is to break up the (normally) compacted earth. Your best bet is to use a garden fork to break up the compacted soil and any ‘hard pan’ that may be present. The idea is not to turn the soil over or totally stir up the soil, but rather to break up the compacted area you want to give to your roots. Remove any weeds during this step. 

Add any soil amendments to the broken up surface of the soil, and fork the ground up again. As before, the idea is to not turn cover the soil, but simple let the amendments to filter through the loosened dirt. Soil conditioners that are mixed into the soil are called amendments; materials that go on top of the soil are mulches.   

Your job is to create a gradual change from enriched soil down to the subsoil. A sudden change in soil composition will form a barrier to water movement in the ground. Biological agents in the soil will continue this process in the future. 

The soil you have to work with dictates the amendments. Heavy clay or loose sandy soils require more amendment than loam, but all soils benefit from organic amendments. Organic matter in the soil acts as a sponge that holds water, air and dissolved nutrients, ready to be taken up by the plants. 

Note: Steer manure is classified as a soil amendment, not as a fertilizer. To be a legal ‘fertilizer’, there needs to be a minimum guaranteed amount of nitrogen in the product, and steer manure fails the test. It is a good soil conditioner, though. 

2) Double-digging 

(Note: here is a point on which our Master Gardener instructor and I, plus most of the gardeners in the class, disagreed. Dr. Downer was not convinced it was worthwhile, but his viewpoint was perhaps for larger scale agriculture while ours was the home garden. My opinion is backed up by the Peace Corps, but take my advice with a grain of salt… ) 

Double digging is discussed in this video, Home vegetable Gardening, Part 1, starting at about minute 19… 
 
Double digging is the most important step for true deep bed prep.

The idea is to remove a shovel-depth of soil and set it aside, add amendments to the bottom of the resulting hole, and fork the amendments into the exposed subsoil as we talked about above. Go as deep as reasonable. Moist soil of course works easiest, and you may need to re-moisten the area and wait for the water to soak in. Push and pull back on the handle of your fork as you go down to break up and loosen the soil. Move the fork or spade back a few inches and repeat until your trench is complete. 

In a narrow bed, move from side to side, then back a few inches and do an entire bed in one pass. On wider beds, it may be easier to make one long, narrow trench, then make another pass next to it, and move soil from side to side as you double dig. In either case, the idea is to move the top layer of earth, go down another shovel depth, then add the top of the next section to what you just broke up. 

Replace the soil you removed previously and mix in amendments as you go, then fork this upper layer up. You now have a loosened area 16″ to 24″ deep with passages through the soil for the exchange of air and water.

This deeper cultivation will promote deeper moisture and root penetration. In really tough ground, you may not be able to go as deep as you like, but the next time you work up the soil, it will have been softened by the probing plant roots. 

The final step is to rake out the resulting bed, moisten the soil, and let it rest for a day while the soil moisture stabilizes. You can now add your drip system and cover the soil with a weed prohibiting layer of organic mulch. 

To read this article in its original form, please visit the Camarillo Community Gardens Vegetable Gardening 101  pages. 

Raised Bed Gardens – Part 1

(This article is taken from a the series ‘Raised Bed Gardens’ by Gardening-coaches.com and is used with permission) 
With all the talk we have been hearing in the news about raised beds, perhaps we need to take a closer look at raised beds. 
What is a raised bed? 
A raised bed is any garden area that has been worked and graded so the planting surface is at least 4″ above the original soil level. Raised beds are usually 2′ to 5′ wide and any length desired. As you can see below, the deeply prepared soil of a raised bed gives the plants’ roots more room to grow in. 
 
Narrow beds have a number of advantages. Garden jobs such as weeding, controlling insects, and harvest are all made easier with a reachable garden’ These jobs can be performed from the walkways between beds and the gardener never needs to step on the garden bed. 
Staying off of the bed is important. Plants are short lived and need healthy roots to produce fruit. Just walking next to a plant in soft earth can shear of a large amount of root. Compressed soil also has fewer voids for water and air penetration, and root systems use both of these to digest and transport minerals. 
To get the most out of a limited space, these raised beds need to be planned and laid out carefully. Narrow beds make it easier to watch for pests, but you need walkways 2′ wide to allow room to move among and care for the plants. Flagstones and other types of pavers can be used instead of walkways. They allow somewhat more growing area but allow you to wander onto the garden soil. Your challenge in laying out you beds is to maximize the use of your land, avoid walking on your plants and assure ease of use. 
Access and spacing are important, and once established, raised beds help keep the areas defined. You concentrate the enriched soil and compost in the beds, not on the pathways. The aisle areas can be mulched to suppress weeds, and a visually attractive, low maintenance, high-production garden is the result. 
Garden soil preparation is the most important part of an intensive gardening effort. Once it is properly prepared, your garden soil will be loose, with good texture (or structure), and rich in air, water and nutrients. This deep preparation promotes deep root growth and greater root mass, and it also puts the roots into a deeper, more stable moisture zone. We’ll cover the subject of soil preparation in a later section. 
The deep bed preparation and enrichment that is part of an intensive system also allows us to grow more in less space. We can plant as close as practical without reducing the amount of food each plant can absorb. This close spacing allows us create micro-climates where plants shade the top soil and reduce soil temperatures, and reduce evaporation even more. 
To read this article in its entirtity, please visit the Camarillo Community Gardens Vegetable Gardening 101  pages.