Raised Bed Garden questions

[monkeybird]

I live directly on salt water. The soil has some salt contamination. Growing in raised beds is the only way for me to go.

[Ruthmary]

As Grinnan Barrett said, it depends where you are. Most things I grow do best in the ground, but then I haven't got clay soil. In my experience, raised garden beds dry out too quickly and the soil gets too hot. Try digging down a few inches into the soil to see if your watering gets to the roots of the plants. It is better to give several long deep waterings each week when needed than watering every day. When you water every day, the roots are not encouraged to go deep, but sit near the surface of the soil and suffer from heat stress.

[Grinnan Barrett]

Where are you? You don't list a real location. If you are in Texas as an example the heat just killed everything. also lack of rain fall. If you are in Iowa you sure had plenty of rain. the low areas still have some of the water. did you put in new soil in the boxes? or did you use the clay in your area? I know here in Texas my daughter put in raised beds back in spring and it has been miserable for her to grow anything.

[overbore]

It took us about two years to get our raised beds soil right for the veggies we grow. Boston Pickling cukes work well for us; wife has 16 quarts of sweets and dills put up.

We use top setting onions because they will produce next years crop which we have already planted and is up.

Our soft neck garlics did well but wife had surgery so re-planing is delayed.

Indeterminate tomatoes did well; watered the bases only; have bees for pollination. No high nitrogen fertilizer but added calcium to wipe out blossom rot.

Harvested two pickings of bush beans. Okra is doing well. Spring lettuce did great as did the greens and cabbage.

10-10--10 is the basis of our use for even the berry bushes and Mullberry trees. Learn what works for you and when and why and how to germinate the seeds then transplant it; soil temperature and Ph level is critical.

Laus Deo
overbore
.

[610Alpha]

Pics of garden now

Tomato plant - indeterminate beef master - mom gave it to me, bought it from the amish.


3 cucu*mber plants - still harvesting cuke's


baby carrots next to tomato and in the foreground are a second crop of green beans - we'll if we can get some more this year.


All thats left of the green beans I harvested...ate a bunch and gave a bunch away...My goal next year is to keep track of the amount that I harvest.

When I insert the images they show up as a pic but when I save the post they switch to a link...anyone else ever see this?

[Lowdown3]

Matt- you'll find a lot of the enviro nazis cringe at stuff like that.

When I started making the gardening videos on youtube I mentioned that we had to spray some of our fruit trees in order to save them.

Boy it was no time at all before I was the anti christ in the environazis minds! I got the stupidest comments for the longest time.

Everything from "primordial beasts will take care of it" to "if you let chickens range in your orchards they would take care of the problem." Course my chickens WERE ranging in several of the orchards and the problem persisted for years.

A couple test trees WEREN'T sprayed- they died out.

I kept getting stupid comments including 1 idiot who told me that "if you EVER use ANY commercial fertilizer (think granular 10-10-10) that NO LIVING organism will EVER live in that soil again." He seriously said that...

Not long after, we are putting in a potato crop and an area that I used granular 10-10-10 in liberally for tomatoes the previous season is absolutely TEEMING with earthworms. So you know I had to put that on video ;) Know what? The retarded replies from the unexperienced but indoctrinated crowd slowed to a trickle. Imagine that...

We keep 10-10-10 in storage for the garden areas, orchards, etc. during the PAW. IME, commercial fertilizer of this type stores better long term than manure.

However we use manure liberally on growing areas- rabbit, chicken and goat. Rarely do we compost anything and I've never had a problem with even chicken litter "burning" any plants. We use all the soil improvement techniques a true "organic" gardener does and we rarely used commercial fertilizer unless it's something like corn that we can't grow in our soil type without some 34-0-0.

We rotate goats through two of our main growing areas that are fenced in. They eat the crop residue, keep the grapes on the fence pruned for us and put the fertilizer right where we need it.

We have diazanon in storage as well as dormant oil spray that I have less and less confidence in (use, not storage) as well as replacement parts for irrigation system, etc.

I expect the bug and pest situation to be WORSE not better in a bad situation. Losing an entire crop when lives may depend on it to your unwillingness to use a pesticide or a commercial fertilizer is foolish IMO. YMMV. All in all, we have a very hard soil type to work with and some serious climate restrictions also.

[Matt In Oklahoma]

this year the squash bugs are out of control.

I went to a meet last night with some LMIs and they spoke athis. Chickens dont seem to like them neither they say. They suggested puttin plants like marigolds round them . I suggested storing a few hundred #s of sevin for PAW. Them naturalist didnt like that but I dont care, a fat boy wants to eat!!

[Lowdown3]

#1. Soil test.

Gotta know what your starting with, or you just bowling in the dark.

[coyotewhisperer]

I am no expert but my raised beds took twice the water and produced half the yeild of my regular garden this year. Sevin is the only reason i have squash this year the squash bugs are out of control. Im buying a roto tiller and expanding the garden by 70 feet next year. My peppers have been up since may 1st and just now producing.

[610Alpha]

Here are pics from late June of my garden.


Lettuce and Peas (only got about a 1/2 cup from 6-8 plants not worth it IMO).


Green Onions, behind them Cucu*mbers and Baby Carrots


Green Beans, cucu*mber hidden in the back, and Tomatoe


Green Beans and in the back corner Cucu*mbers



The PVC pipe supports a 4 x 16 Cattle panel, the plants grow up through the openings which support the plants when its windy. The upright PVC was used to tie my hose and water sprinkler so that when I watered it rained down on my garden. I'll take some pics of the green beans that I have frozen.

I have a second crop of green beans just coming up now.

I highly recommend the book "How to Grow More Vegetables" by John Jeavons (I will do a review of it). Lots of info, especially the companion planting stuff for mutual benefit of plants and to help control pests.

[TyrannyUnleashed]

Thanks for the replies everyone.
Note to self for next year...

1. Get soil checked this fall
2. Heat may have been the problem and I should buy a rain guage to make sure I don't over water to compensate for the heat.
3. Buy a used rototiller and just use the clay that we have in the mid-south along with some mulch (or other organic material).

[610Alpha]

I will take a pic of my tomato plant and carrots and what is left of my cucumbers. My garden did really well imo, I got several pounds of green beans and 40+ cucu*mbers, lots of leaf lettuce, and dozens of green onions.

See some of my pics on the "Garden Pic" thread...I forgot to take some pics before i pulled the green beans and lettuce.

My growing media (I bought all my supplies from Hummert International):
Cotton Burr Compost
Parboiled Rice Hulls - replaces vermiculite/perlite, it is renewable and takes a while to breakdown.
Peat Moss
Note: Since I got my prices from the their online system, which is for companies not regular joe's, they gave them to me at the bulk price not the consumer price.


So far this first year has been a success imo. I did learn that I only need 1 cucumber plant...lol. Bush Peas are a waste of time for me.

We had 100+ days in July but haven't had any rain for a while...I watered every day in the evening.

[Rmplstlskn]

It could be my soil. When I made my raised beds, I purchased Sphagnum Moss, Cow Manure, Vermiculite, and Top soil. I wanted the garden to be as organic as possible.

I have discovered that what sells for TOP SOIL is JUNK! Mostly mulch... I decided last year to "improve" my red, somewhat clay-ish VA soil, so I bought the best bagged top soil I could find and some bags of "soil enhancers," as well as some manure. Added some leaf compost as well. It turned out TERRIBLE last year... The most frustrating was the ANTS that must have been hidden in the top soil that took over the raised beds... Also, when the top soil went down, it looked all nice, black and rich, but after a few weeks and some rains I saw that it was just mostly MULCH... CRAP soil!

So last fall I dug out all the "top soil" and went back to my VA red clay-ish soil, with leaf compost mixed in. MUCHO better this year, but still had problems as whined about above. Even the earthworms started coming back...

But I think my soil is still NOT RIGHT, which is why I am having it tested in the fall by a REAL LAB, not the home test kits, to get ready for next year. I really do believe that it is ALL IN THE SOIL, and WEATHER after that. This has been a hard year for all the gardeners I know too, but they said that last year too, and the year before. So not sure what that means...

Not giving up, but those who think they are going to break open a sealed #10 can of "survival seeds" when it gets bad are in for a HUGE RUDE awakening...

[610Alpha]

I would get your soil tested, just to be on the safe side.

[goatlady]

It's not the raised beds, it's the summer weather! Waaay tooo hot so soon and for so long hardly anything has been able to produce in my raised beds this year. I have a feeling some of the lack of production problems may have happened because it was just too dern hot, air temp-wise, for the insects to pollinate stuff and those 110+ degrees days just suck the moisture out of the leaves of the plants. I'm personally shooting for a fall garden this year so am getting busy cleaning out the plants in now.