Gardening for Keeps
(Page 2 of 4)
October/November 2008
By Barbara Pleasant
Wide corridors get a lot of traffic, but like the row middles in fruit orchards, they are not too compacted to support grasses, clovers and other low-growing plants. Letting corridors go green helps them double as habitat for ground beetles, earthworms and other beneficial life forms (some we can see and some we can’t). Clippings gathered from mowing the corridors can be used to mulch nearby beds.
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Sizing Up Beds
What balance of bed and pathway dimensions gives the most efficient use of space? After experimenting with several bed sizes, agricultural researchers at the Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation research farm in Ardmore, Okla., settled on 40-inch-wide beds, separated by 20-inch-wide pathways as their high-efficiency choice. The Noble Foundation beds are raised, but 40 inches is also a good width for in-ground beds, because you can step over or straddle them.
Symmetry is always tempting, but don’t assume that your garden should consist of uniformly sized beds connected to a central corridor. As you play around with the best sizes for your permanent beds, you may find that a mix of bed sizes will work better for you in the long run.
For example, let’s say you grow sweet corn, winter squash, watermelons or other crops that need a block of space, so you will need two or more unusually wide beds. Other beds might be sized to suit trellised beans or peas, or tomatoes grown in custom-built cages. Smaller beds, on the other hand, make it easy to keep up with successive sowings of salad greens, radishes and other come-and-go veggies.
Bed length reaches a point of diminishing returns, too. If you have to keep trudging down to the end of a long row and make a turn to get to the other side, you’re working too hard. This problem is easy to fix by using boards as temporary overpasses that allow you to walk across wide beds. Whenever a task requires you to step on a permanent bed, standing on a board will distribute your weight and limit compaction. When you’re not using your “garden boards” as standing stations, they can come in handy for holding down fabrics or trapping slugs.
Paving Pathways
The pathways between beds are important work spaces, and they have an uncanny talent for becoming broader as the season progresses. When working permanent beds that are not framed, you will probably need to re-dig bed edges that have turned into pathways at least once a year to undo the damage caused by compaction.
