It will be about what are high beds - the pros and cons, advantages, disadvantages of this method of cultivating garden crops in the Kuban. My name is Anna. I am one of those who moved to the Kuban. An inveterate gardener, a land workaholic, just the mistress of 8.5 acres of land that our family acquired in the Krasnodar Territory several years ago (2014). Actually, my experience is not great, but it is. I want to share it.
Experience in creating and using high beds
It all started with the fact that, when planning my plot, I was puzzled by the question: how to make beds, what kind of beds will I have? Living to the Kuban in the North-West of our country, I had high, warm beds. Naturally, here I wanted to make just such, since for myself I immediately highlight many advantages.
The advantages of high beds
- It’s very convenient for me to take care of them with my not very healthy back. To such beds I always have a small portable bench. It helps to look after them.
- When watering, water does not spread, remaining inside the box, shoes remain clean.
- The paths between the beds are clean.
- Convenient mulching.
- Weeds are few, plants do not compete with them, spending all their strength only on fruiting.
- Harvested from raised beds is much higher than usual. You can start growing greens, for example, as soon as the snow melts.
- High beds do not require digging, it is enough to add a little compost or humus in the spring, to loosen, for example, with a pitchfork.
- Nice and well maintained. This is also a plus - where without it?
In general, having moved to the Krasnodar Territory, I could not even think that vegetables, herbs are grown somehow differently. I even began to draw a plan of the location of the beds. Suddenly, at one of the forums (and I love online communication), roughly speaking, they turned my finger at the temple, saying that they didn’t do that here. Several reasons were mentioned, but one, the most important: everything burns in such beds.
Hmm ... I thought about it. I began to study the issue. Indeed, locals plant all cultures next to each other, simply plowing several hundred square meters of land, sometimes without even dividing the beds with paths. Well ... Maybe they are right. So, we will refuse from baskets for now. We dig a piece of land, plant vegetables, greens as all the indigenous inhabitants of the Kuban plant.
But there it was ... But what about beauty ?! What beauty if everything is planted in a row? No, I don’t want that. I want it to be beautiful, comfortable, clean. Well, how is it so easy to stick seeds, seedlings into the ground, without dividing the plots with at least a path? And then how to walk between them, how to water? It spreads out in different directions. In general, my imagination has no limits - my husband and I built these beds:
I called them "knolls." Then I, seeing this beauty, could not get enough of it. What are we done! Everything is clear, beautiful, comfortable!
It's time to sow, plant seedlings. Everything seems to be nice, beautifully important! But ... watering was terribly uncomfortable! Firstly, water flows down from the knolls - there is dirt on the paths, secondly, the earth crumbles (due to watering or just like that), thirdly, the hose must be constantly adjusted so as not to break the edges of the beds.
And so everything is fine, nothing is burning, everything is growing fine, my back says thank you, there are no weeds - apparently, under a layer of earth they were lost, they died. But during the season such improvised mounds lose their shape, you have to maintain it all the time.
All the same, you need a box! It will be more convenient with them! Well, I don’t want to just have arable land, my garden should not be like that.
During the year of torment with my fictional tall beds-hills, I learned that there are still people who make beds in boxes in the Kuban. Having watched from the side, having studied the positive aspects, I cast aside all doubts and ordered boards. Why boards, and not other material? After all, boxes can be made of metal profiles, slate (including second-hand), brick, concrete, and many other materials, the pros and cons of which I have carefully studied.
Bottom line - wooden boards for high beds approached me more in some respects. Firstly, wood is an environmentally friendly material, breathable, and quite durable. Secondly, all elements of the box are easily fastened with self-tapping screws, brackets or nails. Thirdly, you can sit on the edge of the box. It doesn’t hurt, as if to sit on a narrow metal profile. Not as cold as if on concrete. Well and again about beauty. Yes it's beautiful! The tree fits perfectly into the general landscape garden landscape.
Boards were chosen 2 cm thick and 20 cm wide. They decided not to do above the beds - suddenly the truth will burn.
My husband built me a box measuring 5 m × 80 cm. He fastened the boards with screws. They covered the box with a simple stain, although it could be covered with something more substantial, for example, varnish, or a septic tank. But I decided not to splurge heavily, they’ll stand idle for 8-10 years (I knew this from previous years in a humid North-West climate), and then again I can put together new ones.
Here we have such boxes for beds. In the photo, part of the boxes are already covered with stain.
On the site, I decided to arrange them so that a 2-wheeled wheelbarrow could easily pass between them, so that I could freely accommodate with my little bench. The distance between the beds is approximately equal to the width of the beds itself - a little less than one meter.
Having put the boxes on the ground (please note that before that the land was not cultivated in any way, just mowed the grass, put the boxes on top), we drove pieces of reinforcement from the two (long) sides of the beds so that the boards were fixed, not bent from the weight of the earth. The bottom is covered with cardboard - this is an additional protection against weed grass, which remained under the cardboard. They covered it up to half the height with earth, then a layer of compost, which I collected all year, and from above - again with earth.
Please note that the area on which you want to place the box must be flat! We were lucky - we did not have to level the surface.
For high beds, where shelter will be needed, we built arcs from metal-plastic plumbing pipes (it was very budgetary - we bought a 50 m coil in one well-known building hypermarket). The pipes bend very easily. To fix them, they drove pieces of reinforcement into the ground (of a smaller diameter than the pipe itself) and simply put these flexible pipes onto the reinforcement. And here they are, my pretty ones. Ready, waiting for the first sowing!
This season on my new beds almost everything that I wanted to plant grew. Only a part of the onions and beets were located simply on the ground, did it for the experiment and made sure that you should not bother with checking any more - which beds are more convenient and practical. Everything - only in the box, only in high beds!
Cons of growing a garden without high beds (my opinion):
- When watering, water spreads everywhere.
- The Kuban land is dense, tends to crack when heat comes after rains. It was even this - my beets fell deep underground into such a crack.
- Shoes get dirty when watering.
- The back hurts when caring for landings (weeding, loosening, etc.).
- It is difficult to pull the root crops out of the ground, the earth is not as loose as inside the baskets.
- Weeds climb both to the side of the planting, they just sprout from old stocks of seeds.
- The mulch disappears somewhere, and inside the boxes lies where it was placed.
- An annual digging is required.
Still, high beds are the best way to grow vegetables and herbs (for me personally). Nothing like burning crops did not occur, watering was no more common than beds located just on the ground.
I watered the main crops on the garden beds every other day, cucumbers every day, tomatoes once every 1.5-2 weeks. In the same way, I irrigated ordinary beds.
The soil of the high beds was always loose, lush, although I did not mulch everything. There were almost no weeds, but the worms fell in love with my beds, often met them, and in the fall, when she freed them from the leaves, I found them even more. Hard workers! Apparently, compost attracted them.
What else I want to note. Raised beds for growing tomatoes, cucumbers - this is very convenient, but it is necessary to provide supports or trellises for garter lashes of cucumbers, tall varieties of tomatoes.
I planted exclusively undersized bush varieties, since the trellises have not yet been prepared, but next season my tomatoes and cucumbers will be in a separate place, always in the baskets and on the trellises that are already prepared. Perhaps I will share my experience with you at the end of the 2017 season.
Cons of high beds
Probably, for someone it will turn out to be a minus the material costs for the manufacture of such beds in their area. But I will say this: do not regret it - and you will not regret it! Everything will be paid off with a crop, low labor costs.
The downside may be that such beds are difficult to reschedule, move, difficult physically. But many gardeners are planning a garden for many years, therefore, I think that this minus will eventually become a plus. Once you work hard, you will gain greater convenience, a beautiful layout, which you will admire for many years.
Of the minuses, probably all. Nothing comes to mind anymore. One pluses!
Here, admire - my high beds! By the way, pay attention to the pieces of reinforcement sharpening from the ground at the side walls of the ducts. That is how we strengthened them so that the earth could not deform the box.
Carrots and onions:
Eggplant:
Tomatoes:
And here is my favorite garden - our breadwinner and handsome:
Posted by: Anna Pasechnik. Photo by the author.