Chinese Raised Gardens

Article Tools

Image Gallery

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

Additionally, because you walk on the paths between the beds and never on the planting area itself, the earth doesn't get packed down ... roots won't be damaged and can grow easily ... and the beds will stay aerated (which will help nitrogen-fixing bacteria create nutrients from air in the soil).

Raised-bed gardeners never have to worry about accidentally sitting on the plants behind them as they weed or harvest, and—because such folks will have to fertilize and water only the beds themselves, rather than the whole garden area—they'll use less of both of these essential ingredients and eliminate much of the mud that can follow garden chores into the house. As an added bonus, a raised-bed garden can be kept looking wonderfully neat and beautiful with a minimum of effort

WHAT'S INVOLVED

A person could almost make a museum out of all the wonderful hand tools that the Chinese have developed to make cultivation easier, but—to prepare your own Oriental raised beds—you'll actually need only a shovel, a sharp spade, and a rake. (You might want to add a trowel and a bulb planter to ease the tasks of weeding and transplanting seedlings.)

When laying out a bed, remember to keep it narrow enough so that its center can be reached without your having to step on the bed itself. In China, raised beds are—at the most—four to five feet wide and usually rectangular. However, we also saw them formed into squares, triangles, crescents, or whatever shape best suited the available space.

Peter Chan (a man who is among the strongest proponents of this method ... see the accompanying sidebar) builds beds that are four feet wide at the bottom and three feet wide at the top, with a side slope of six inches. Each bed is then surrounded by paths at least a foot wide.

PERMANENT PLANNING

Once you've completed your garden layout on paper (plan well, as the whole idea is to make permanent plots and thus reduce your future work), measure and mark out the first rectangle by attaching twine to four corner stakes. Then, working from the center and using the string as a guide to keep the sides of the bed straight, turn the soil one shovel deep (as opposed to the "one shovel and one fork deep" preparation necessary for biodynamic/French intensive gardening), removing weed roots and rocks as you go along. (If you turn up a lot of stones, save them to pave your garden paths.)

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print