DEEP MULCH

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Raised beds provide superior drainage in wet weather, allowing a garden to be deeply mulched without keeping the soil too wet for too long. Raised beds also help you produce noticeably larger yields in less space, and (because you walk only between beds, never on them) they prevent soil compaction from foot traffic. Deep mulch virtually eliminates weeding and hoeing, fertilizes plants, prevents soil compaction (and muddy gardening conditions) due to rain, creates a fertilizing humus, improves tilth and encourages a thriving population of worms, beneficial bacteria and fungi. The combination of dense planting and deep mulch provides a double layer of mulch—both living foliage and dead organic material—that protects the soil far better than either of the two methods would alone. Because it requires so much less labor, a mulched garden makes gardening possible and fun even for small children (kids love to spread mulch) and for senior citizens and handicapped people. For the same reason, you can leave a mulched garden for two or three weeks—to go on vacation, for example—and not come back to a jungle of weeds. During the busy harvest season, you can concentrate on picking, preparing and preserving your vegetables rather than on hoeing and weeding.

Bed Preparation

You don't have to double-dig to make a raised bed; you can single-dig, plow or rototill the ground. (Keep in mind, though, that every time you till you destroy worms.) The important thing is to produce a mound of loosened soil three to five inches deep and three to four feet wide; the length and shape of the bed are entirely up to you. You also have a choice of many methods for holding the soil in the beds. Some gardeners build borders from planks staked or nailed into place, while others use landscape ties, fieldstones, bricks or cement blocks. Most of my beds are simply heaped earth with the sides sloped at a 45° angle. Mulch prevents the beds from eroding away. (This method works fine in clay or loam soils but probably wouldn't be effective in sandy soils.)

When I start beds from scratch in sod, I rototill the area several times over a two- or three-month period to kill the grasses. (Quack grass, however, is so persistent that I dig it out by hand; rototilling a single clump chops it into hundreds of pieces that become hundreds of plants.) Then I simply heap top-soil from around the bed—in other words, from the aisles—to form the bed itself. I make most paths between the beds 15 inches wide, and main aisles wheelbarrow width.

Once I've dug and formed a bed, I'll never dig or till it again, so at this point I work compost or other amendments into the area. This is an especially good idea in heavy clay or sandy soils.

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