Raised Bed Gardening… With a Little Help from my Friends
By Megan Rosko, Age 18, Outsiders 4-H Club
Guerecki and Rosko. Courtesy of Megan Rosko.
I have been completing garden projects for about ten years and will be taking my gardening skills to a higher level this year . . . with raised beds. Eventually, our whole family garden will be raised beds to make it easier for my mom to continue gardening after my brothers and I leave home. So this year, my garden project is the first section that will be done.
I didn’t know much about how to garden with raised beds, so I asked for a little help from my friends who already have them. A family friend, Jim Bass, is helping us to actually construct our raised beds. We are recycling treated lumber from our play set as well as boards from Jim’s shed. He showed us how to measure out the rows last fall and mark them with posts. When the ground dries out from the spring rains, we will begin the actual construction.
Another friend helping me is Madeleine Gurecki who is also a member of the Outsiders 4-H Club. She has been teaching me a lot about square foot gardening. Although my plot will have three long rows, each row will be divided into squares four feet by four feet. Madeleine showed me how to divide the squares into grids then plan each grid with finger marking according to what I plant. In row gardening, the roto-tiller would leave trenches to drop in the seeds. Madeleine explained how to punch a pattern of holes in each grid then plant the seeds. Vines like cucumbers or squash would be planted further apart with one seed per grid but roots like carrots or radishes could be planted closer together with 9-12 seeds in a grid.
Both of my friends have also told me of many advantages of raised beds. First of all raised beds produce more because the smaller area is more manageable.
Raised Bed Gardening Graph. Courtesy of Megan Rosko.
Plants can be spaced closer because you don’t need places to step. If you are not stepping in the walkways, you are not packing the soil which makes air circulation better for the plants and allows rainwater to drain better. You can add compost or mulch easier and more efficiently. All of this adds to a longer growing season because beds are more likely to warm up sooner in the spring and continue to produce later in the fall. Most of all since everything is up higher off the ground, there isn’t as much bending over to do for weeding and harvesting. My mom likes that advantage the best.
I am looking forward to raised bed gardening this year with this new plan and hope everything grows well. Then I will have Jim and Madeleine visit to see what I accomplished . . . with a little help from my friends.
For more information visit Cornell’s Garden-Based Learning which includes vegetable fact sheets including one on raised bed gardening and the latest list of vegetables that are well-adapted for home gardens in New York. Also visit Cornell’s horticulture site including specific pages full of resources for growers and home gardeners.
