Learn the Benefits of Gardening in Raised Beds

hi everybody I'm Joel ample I'm the creator and host of growing a greener world on national public television you know give me a shovel and some soil and I'll plant anything anywhere but given the option I can't imagine a better growing environment than raised garden beds and the reason for that is that no matter what type of soil you're starting with whether it's nothing or some native soil you can always make it better in a raised bed now two of the most important things that you're after for garden success are great soil structure and drainage and you can easily achieve optimal conditions for both using raised beds so let's talk about the size of the beds first as far as width you always want the beds to be wide enough so the roots can spread out as much as they need to go but you never want the best to be so wide that you have to put pressure on the soil or step on to it to get into the plant to maintain it so a good rule of thumb for most people and for me is a bed of about four feet wide that's the perfect width that way I can reach in from either side maintain the plant and never put pressure and compact the soil so that's good now as far as the length of the bed it really doesn't matter the plants don't care what matters is how it looks in your garden what your budget is and personal preference so that's it with length these happen to be twelve feet long and it's perfect in this garden but what does matter is the height of the bed now I think a minimum height is six inches because again you want the roots to be able to grow down and all plants need at least six inches but anything above that is gravy now in this case these beds are 18 inches tall maybe that's a little too much but not really I never want these roots to be deprived of their ability to go as deep as they want to go but 18 inches here is great twelve inches is a happy medium but anything over six inches but nevertheless if you can help it when considering your soil for raised beds it can be brought into the garden and mounded up in wide rows or added to a frame structure and if you have existing soil you can simply add more soil as needed to fill out the area but whether you're starting from scratch or amending an existing bed ideally it's best to incorporate plenty of organic materials such as well aids manure and compost and even store-bought soil amendments that way you're in gently improving the quality of the soil and adding slow-release nutrients for an extra boost you might want to add a supplemental slow-release organic granular fertilizer the end goal is to create a deep wide growing area that encourages roots to grow down and out with soil that has good structure an easy test for knowing if you've achieved the ideal mix is when you squeeze the soil in your hand it binds together yet it crumbles apart easily when it's disturbed an equally important benefit to just-right soils and raised garden beds is superb drainage thanks to gravity water wants to always run somewhere saturated soil in rotted roots are rarely a problem because the water is moving through and out of the bed fortunately raised beds allow you to easily create the optimal combination of drainage and moisture retention at the same time by adding lots of organic matter and finally when it comes to the material that you use to make your raised beds you have several options and three of the most common are pressure treated lumber now it holds up well to the elements and it's inexpensive but some people still have an issue with the fact that they're chemicals used to treat the wood although that's not nearly as much of an issue today as it used to be I like untreated wood like this cedar here it's super sturdy it holds up well to the elements and there are no chemicals and I like that and then a newer option that's becoming more popular or composite materials whether it's a resin base or some sort of wood fiber a lot of times they're guaranteed for life it's just one more of many options but whether you choose to contain your soil in a physical barrier or just mound it up wide enough and deep enough creating that raised bed environment is the best thing that you can do to get your plants off to a great start and assure their growing viability all throughout the year because you've done two important things you've improved the soil structure and you've given that area great drainage and raised beds are a great way to do that you