Home gardening
You can “raise” a fuss, the Jolly Roger, a pack of children or, if you're loud enough, even the dead.
But local master gardeners recommend leaving those high-flying suggestions in the dirt, grabbing a shovel and raising your garden beds instead.
Raised beds provide a host of benefits over ground-level gardening and aren't difficult to do, said Justine Brown of Butler Township, a Penn State Master Gardener.
Brown has four raised beds measuring a collective 20 feet by 20 feet at her home, and she serves as the master gardener educator for a project at Butler Catholic School that sees students growing vegetables in five raised beds behind the school.
“There's a whole list of reasons why raised beds are a great way to grow anything,” Brown said.
She said the ground warms up faster in raised beds, which allows for earlier planting of cold-weather crops such as lettuce, radishes and beets.
Raised beds also drain more efficiently, which Brown said is imperative for growing plants.
“When standing water gets in the air pores of the soil, the vegetables can't really pick up the nutrition that they need,” she said.
Raised beds also prevent humans from walking on the soil where plants are growing, which compacts the soil and eliminates the air pores in the soil. Also, roots have a harder time growing when soil is compacted, Brown said.
A raised garden is also easier on the spine, as the plants are at a more comfortable level for interaction and care from gardeners.“It's so much easier to bend down and not have to go all the way to the bottom,” Brown said.She said raised beds should be no wider than 3 or 4 feet.“You need to be able to reach in and pull weeds, fertilize and harvest and care for the plants,” Brown said. “But they can be as long as you want.”She said in her experience, raised beds are typically 6 to 10 feet long, depending on space.Each of the four raised beds at Brown's home are 3 feet wide and 12 inches high by 12 feet long.The raised beds at Butler Catholic School are also 12 inches high and 3 feet wide, but about 8 feet long.Both are made of wood, but Brown stressed that only untreated wood should be used if vegetables are being grown in the raised bed.“If you are growing vegetables, the chemicals in treated lumber will leach into the soil, and you don't want that in your vegetables,” Brown said.She said corner supports must be sunk 6 to 8 inches into the ground before adding the wood that will become the container for the raised bed.Some people prefer buying lengths of corrugated metal to build their raised beds, which are available at most home improvement stores.“They might be a little easier to put in, but they might be a little pricier,” Brown said.
She recommends filling the raised beds with special topsoil created for containers and raised beds, instead of bags of all-purpose topsoil.“If you have a lot of raised beds, you can do a mixture of topsoil, sand and compost,” Brown said. “Don't overfertilize it, especially if you're using compost.”She also advises against tilling up the soil in raised beds, or even ground-level gardens, as it harms the earthworms in the dirt and breaks up the microbes that keep the soil living.“A lot of gardeners think they have to till their soil every year,” Brown said. “By not tilling it, and only disturbing it where you need to disturb it, you don't destroy those microbes.”She said anyone can build a raised bed using the untreated wood lying around in the garage.“Putting a lot of money into them doesn't make them any better,” Brown said.Raised beds are also effective for uses other than vegetable gardening, according to another county plant lover.
Jill Barger, a Penn State Master Gardener from Adams Township, plants her flowers, shrubs and small trees in eight containerless raised beds throughout her property.“The vegetables I have to do on the deck because of the critters,” she said.Barger also maintains a pollinator garden at the Mars Area Public Library that contains one small and two large raised beds.“They provide good drainage, and drainage is an issue, especially here in Western Pennsylvania because of our clay soils,” Barger said. “If (plants) are raised, they're higher than grass level and the water is going to drain out better.”She said she uses a shovel to turn over dirt that ends up being about 3 to 4 inches above ground level, where she then plants her flower or young tree or shrub.Barger then puts down newspaper and tops with mulch, which she said is less likely to wash away in an episode of heavy rain.She sometimes uses pea gravel or rocks to accent her raised beds.“And there you have it,” Barger said. “About 3 inches of raised bed.”
