Enduring beds: designing an productive garden
Enduring beds will change your gardening game. This type of garden bed helps improve soil health, increases crop yields, and is incredibly basic to design!
Below is an excerpt The Living Soil Handbook By Jesse Frost. It has been adapted for utilize on the Internet.
Designing eternal beds
The term eternal beds is often associated with raised garden beds surrounded by substantial borders made of wood, stone or other materials.
That’s not necessarily what I mean when I utilize the term “eternal bed.” There is nothing wrong with adding physical boundaries to your garden beds, but for our purposes the term applies broadly garden beds kept in relatively the same place for a long time.
This approach helps transfer density to paths rather than growing space.
Enduring beds allow for long-term soil improvement.
Because the soil structure is never turned over by no-till practices, it never needs to be reconstructed.
We created permanently raised beds on our farm using a reversible plow mounted on our BCS walk-behind tractor set to a depth of about four inches.
Our beds are 100 feet long and 75 inches wide and are separated from each other by 14 inch (35 cm) wide paths. However, we are moving to 120cm (48in) wide by 15m (50ft) long beds with 45cm (18in) wide paths.
The original 100-foot-long, 30-inch-wide (75-cm) beds worked well on our farm, but in hindsight, we can see that we would have designed our gardens differently in the beginning if we had known about all the options I describe in this chapter.
Bed width
To my knowledge, the most common bed width in market gardens is 30 inches (75 cm). This is mainly because most tiny hand tools and walk-behind tractor implements are designed with this width in mind.
However, just because it is the most popular width doesn’t mean it is best for everyone. The reason we originally made our beds 30 inches (75 cm) wide was to accommodate our growing equipment.
Now I regret this decision because the width of the bed is one of the hardest things to change once you start your garden.
There are many reasons we don’t like 30-inch wide beds in a no-till system.
Wider beds can provide an augment in efficiency. We usually plant two rows of kale in 30-inch beds. By adding just 18 inches, we can fit four rows, doubling efficiency. Thanks to lettuce, we augment the space between plants, which also increases yields.
One reason is that we don’t cultivate as much as we used to, so these precision tillage tools (up to 30 inches in diameter) are increasingly obsolete on our farm. The tilling tools we still utilize are two sizes of stirrup hoes.
Another reason is the significant loss of growing space when growing in 30-inch wide beds rather than the wider ones as shown in Figure 2.8.
A 30-inch (75 cm) by 100-foot (30 m) bed provides 250 square feet (23 m2) of growing space. A bed measuring 48 inches (120 cm) by 100 feet (30 m) provides 400 square feet (37 m2).
More growing space allows you to grow more plants, and with more crops comes more photosynthesis and greater income potential.
One additional row of lettuce in a 30-foot bed can produce an additional 30 or 40 pounds (14 or 18 kg) of lettuce. And at seven dollars a pound – our current wholesale price – that’s an additional $280 to plant.
So, if you don’t have to rely on precision growing tools – most of which are up to 30 inches (75 cm) in diameter – increasing the width of your bed can make a lot of sense.
Narrow fixed beds = more paths
The next steps for widths other than 30 inches (75 cm) are as follows narrower beds mean more opportunities to manage weeds and keep them weed-free.
For example, consider a garden plot that is 50 feet (15 m) wide. If you combine 30-inch (75 cm) beds with 18-inch (45 cm) tracks, you end up with 12 beds and 13 tracks to manage. However, if you set up 48-inch (120 cm) beds and 18-inch (45 cm) paths, you will have nine beds to grow and 10 paths to manage.
In the latter design, you gain 20 percent more growing space—600 square feet (56 m2) if the beds are 100 feet (30 m) long—with three fewer paths to manage in the same area.
Of course, 30-inch (75 cm) beds have the advantage of being easier to pick up or walk on without having to step into the bed and possibly compact the bed itself.
However, compaction caused by occasional footfalls may not be a problem, depending on the no-till system designed.
British grower and author Charles Dowding, who popularized the deep compost mulch system (which he calls “no dig”), regularly steps on the beds when working in his garden. We have also started going over the beds more often as we find that it packs the compost together.
Even a shallow layer of compost mulch can sometimes create a growing area that is too loose and therefore does not hold the required moisture needed for plants to germinate or grow effectively. In this case, it may be beneficial to get into bed occasionally.
Path width
Chapter six delves into path management. However, consider the width of the path as it is an essential factor to consider when initially setting up your garden beds. The more space you have for a path, the more non-growing space you have to utilize.
Eighteen-inch paths are more convenient to work on than narrow paths. However, wider paths require more work to keep them free from weeds. However, too narrow paths can cause problems during planting and harvesting.
At Coarse Draft Farmstead, our field paths are about 14 inches (35 cm) wide, but those in the three high tunnels are closer to 12 inches (30 cm).
It’s a little tight here, but our harvest bins fit into these paths and create less “empty space” for general management.
If you plan to mark residential paths, for example by sowing a mixture of ryegrass and clover, set the width of the path to match the width of your mower. (Life paths are also discussed in detail in chapter six.)
Fixed beds: length
The characteristics of your site may determine the length of the flower bed – trees, buildings or slopes will all have a say. No matter what length you decide on, standardize all your beds in this one length.
Hannah and I decided to put 30m beds in the field and 15m beds in the tunnels as it fits well with our landscape. However, there is nothing wrong with 60, 80 or 130 foot (18, 25 or 40 m) beds.
Make your decision based on context.
I do We strongly recommend setting one length for all beds if possible so that the entire row cover, trellis or landscape fabric fits each bed equally well (never too miniature or too long).
Throughout history and around the world, people have grown crops on hillsides, using terraces to keep the soil in place.
If each bed is unified, it will also be easier to prepare a garden crop plan for the season.
This is an essential issue because crop planning is already a complicated process and having to accommodate different yields from a bed of the same length versus a bed of different lengths would create a huge logistical puzzle that would have to be reorganized each season.
In standard beds, the cropping plan can largely remain the same from year to year.
The shorter standard bed length has some advantages, including faster cleaning and switching from one crop to another.
Shorter beds may also be sensible for succession planting and cover crops, or when trialling tiny crops.
Managing crop trials, especially when they fail, can be cumbersome and costly for longer beds. And although it may sound superficial, don’t underestimate the value of the morale boost that shorter beds can provide– for the bed, setup, cleanup and replanting take less time.
Bed orientation
The orientation of the bed in relation to the compass direction – east to west or north to south – is less essential than the way its orientation affects the drainage or retention of water.
For example, if you live in a arid climate where rainfall is low, it may be more essential to place your beds across the slope rather than up and down the slope.
This will support them determine what rainfall you are receiving.
If rainfall is often excessive in your climate – like here in Kentucky, where two or three inches of rain regularly occur – be sure to place your beds on slopes to encourage water drainage, even if you’re gardening on a gentle slope.
This may mean angling the beds slightly downwards, or even angling them directly up and down the slope so that water can run off the paths.
The compaction that occurs in sidewalks can make it complex for water to penetrate.
If the water cannot drain, it will fill the paths and eventually overflow to the top of the beds, thus damaging the mulch or soil.
The only exception to considering the effects of cardinal directions is if you intend to utilize ephemeral tunnels, such as crawler tunnels, during the winter.
Generally, if the side wall of the tunnel faces south, the tunnel will absorb the most sunlight (this is especially true north of 40 degrees latitude). However, each structure casts a shadow to the north that is twice the height of the structure in winter.
This should be remembered when planning winter production in the field or building a high tunnel.
Will you be able to make good utilize of the shaded area on the north side of the tunnel? High wind areas may generally require the troughs to be oriented towards the prevailing winds rather than the side towards the force of the wind, particularly in the case of ephemeral tunnels.