Planning Your Raised Bed Garden
After the seemingly eternal Covid winter, getting outside is so exciting! We’ve received our soil delivery, turned our cover crops, and can’t wait to host our first work day this Saturday.
If you’ve rented your bed, now’s the time to start prepping and planning for a successful season.
Links in this Post:
The Average Soil Nutrients for a Vegetable Garden
Soil pH and why it matters
NC Cooperative Extension (Forsyth, NC Center)
Soil Testing Information
Lamotte Soil Test Kit
Down to Earth Natural Fertilizers at Amazon
North Carolina USDA Climate Zones
AGG Community Standards
4×8 raised bed vegetable garden layout ideas
20+ Disease Resistant Open Pollination Vegetable Varieties
Burpee’s Growing Calendar Tool
Test Your Soil
Plants need a balanced blend of nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium to be healthy, as well as pH within an optimal range. The NC Cooperative Extension offers free soil testing beginning in April, and we have submitted many tests over the years with varying results. As far as we can tell, our soil tends to be a bit alkaline, with a high phosphorous content, but since our rental plots are often amended in widely different ways, no results are 100% consistent. We recommend that gardeners do at least some testing in their own plot. This can be done through Extension, as mentioned above, or you can purchase your own soil test kit. We’ve just invested in this fancy model, with the hope of being able to target beds individually to get the nutrient balance just right. Like everything else in gardening, we’re sure it will take patience and experimentation!
Amend If Needed
At AGG, we practice organic gardening, since it is sustainable and produces tastier, more nutritious food. The soil we purchase from Black Sand Company is a mixture of compost and local clay soil, so after a little bit of testing, you may discover the need to add additional organic matter or natural fertilizers, such as grass clippings or leaf mulch, your own homemade compost, or purchased organic amendments/fertilizers.
Plan Plantings
It’s possible to produce quite a bit of produce from even our smallest (4x4’) beds, but it does take a little bit of planning! The considerations are many, but the most important thing is:
What do you like to eat?
Some gardeners focus on peppers and tomatoes, while others love salad greens, chard, and kale. Fortunately our growing season here in Zone 7b is long, so you can begin the spring with cold weather crops, move on to summer ones, and then swing back to cold weather crops in the fall. We’ve had kale growing in some beds nonstop throughout the winter!
If you are returning to the same bed season after season, you will want to rotate your plants to cut down on soil-borne diseases and nutrient deficiencies: for instance, put beans where the tomatoes were last year, move the squash to another spot, start lettuce where the eggplant will be planted later in the season. Many of our gardeners rent more than one bed to make rotations a bit easier.
It’s tempting to fill every bit of space with young plants and rows of sprouting seeds, but bear in mind that these plants will eventually become tall and lush. In our humid climate, air circulation between your plants is extremely important to prevent mold and mildew that can rot your produce or even kill your plants. A bed that is too full will likely be less productive, as plants compete for nutrients and light.
Some plants are easily staked, caged or trellised (not just tomatoes, but squash, beans, cucumbers, eggplant) so make support structures part of your plan and make use of vertical space, too. Just be sure not to shade nearby plots - our Community Standards require total height to stay under five feet.
Finally, you may want to add herbs or flowers to attract pollinators to your vegetables. This is a great idea, but once again, consider the growth potential. Small rosemary plants can turn into shrubs in a single season, and some flowers, like sunflowers and zinnias, will likely grow tall enough to shade your other plants (and your neighbor’s, too).
Read seed packets or check the internet to understand how large your plants may become, and plant accordingly!
Here’s a sample eight foot plot design provided by Tara Nolan at Savvy Gardening.
Choose Wisely
Whether plants are heirloom varieties or hybrid creations, some varieties thrive in our hot, humid climate while others easily succumb to weather changes, insect pests and plant diseases. Here is a list of recommended varieties for our climate.
Plant for the Season
The big box stores have bell pepper plants for sale so it must be time to plant them, right? Not necessarily. Some crops don’t just love, but require warmer temperatures to thrive. Others will “bolt” (go to seed) and become bitter at the first sign of hot weather. (Yes, we’re looking at you, spinach.) Burpee Seed Company offers this handy-dandy tool to understand the optimal planting times for your planned crops. Just enter your zip code, choose a plant category, and all will be revealed.