I have both raised beds and regular flat soil. They both do superb. Raised beds or areas are especially good for root crops and melons and herbs.

I am very, very new at this, what is a root crop? like carrots that grow underground?

Thank you much for your reply!

If it was not for square foot gardening I would no longer be gardening.I also have heard the same about yield, but it seems to be about area plants like tomatoes, corn, squash, potatoes. Now are you talking raised bed or square foot (they are not the same thing). I have two (2) square foot raised beds and one in ground square foot bed. I am putting smaller close spaced vegetables in the raised bed and large area plants in the flat bed with square foot spacing.I got a very good yield on the raised beds after I learned a few basics. Or should I say unlearned a few bad habits and relearned a few basics. Weeds; after the first surge of spring I found my self waiting for them to grow just to have something to do. Now right there, that's what we are talking about, waiting for something to do. Waiting for a weed to grow instead of being behind on weeding all the time. Successive intensive planting and harvesting. No I am not a sales guy LOL just a happy gardener sitting on my duff, fighting cabin fever. Could you add your zone, It would help out any seed starter questions. Check out our square foot forum you can get a lot of info on the raised beds there. I haven't heard about the totes'

Curt :-) Are we there yet?

Meaning of "raised bed" is that it is higher than its surrounding, original plot.
You can do SQR-FT gardening regardless your plot is raied or not. It is a method of planting and spacing.

Raised bed can have advantages where your garden spot is flat (not sloped or terraced) and you get lots of rain often.
On top of that, the run-off water might flood your garden.
In these conditions, a rasied bed can have a lot of advantages.
There might be other considerations for having raised bed:

1- It can be used as a landscape design element in urban environment.
2-It can be built over poor native soil withouth breaking one's back (LOL)

I am in Zone 7, Oklahoma. We have such varied and extreme weather (tornadoes in the spring and summer, mild springs, hot sometimes dry summers, it's crazy really and very hard to prodict) What I mean by raised bed is a 4' x 6' plot of land that is enclosed with wooden boards and higher than ground level. Verus one that is just tilled ground. I had my soil tested last year and I have zero nitrate, so that will have to be admended in, other than that I have good soil. I am new so I am not very up on plant diseases and such so I am wondering what would be easier to work with for a beginner and easier to maintain.

thanks, sorry for the confusion..

ezzirah, last spring was my first at veggies so my experience of course is limited. I didn`t have a clue and I had not found this website, but I built a frame 4x8 8 inches high. The easiest plants that resisted bugs and disease was my pepper plants they were planted next to my tomatoes which also did well. I think my biggest mistake was that I didn`t fertilize well and I set my plants out to late, the eggplants that I planted I found NEED full sun or they never mature. One other plant that was an overproducer is the squash, they seem to be easy to grow. I was talking to an avid gardener and he said plant the plants and learn as you grow. This spring I hope that I have learned enough to really feed the family and not just sporadic treats. Good luck :o)Deanna

Ezzirah011,

In my opinion, it'll always be easier to have raised beds. Usually, you bring in soil and that is generally weed free, so you have no weeds and you have perfect growing material already. It is way more expensive, however. With a regular plot, you just need to add some manure, maybe some fertilizer pellets, and whatever other organic material you desire, till it in, and you're done. It's still less work than building boxes for raised beds and shoveling the soil into the beds.

If you have reasonable soil, or soil that can be improved by composts, then there's not much need to buy and import "artificial" soils. Although I have to say they can grow pretty good carrots that way. Any soil that you work and improve with organic matter will naturally fluff up so I put in 2 by 6 frames around mine just cuz I like the look and I wondered what the winter rains would do on my slightly sloped hillside if I didn't have the soil contained and flat.
Alot depends on the size of your garden. The square-foot gardens tend to be quite modest in size. Those wanting large garden generally avoid the square-foot approach.

raised beds everytime for us, too easy once set up no digging no weeding and water wise.

see our presentations on our site.

len

Here is a link that might be useful: lens garden page

If your growing area will be fairly small, I would go with raised beds. They are more work and likely more expense in year one due to needing to find/purchase something to frame them in and then they need to be filled with something.

After year one though there is no tilling and while weeds will certainly grow, they tend to be much more manageable as the close plant spacing and no empty rows limits their numbers. Watering also takes less time in most cases as the entire area doesn't need water, just the beds themselves.

I switched from an in ground plot of clay that was wet and cold in spring and by summer the weeds had out done me. Every year I was adding tons of organic matter to try to get the clay soil to drain better and it didn't seem to matter.

With raised beds I can now plant in the spring without having to wait for things to dry out, most of my garden time is now spent doing what I enjoy instead of hoeing weeds and I have not noticed any drop in overall yield even though my growing area shrunk by a factor of 4. Most of the in ground garden was wasted space that primarily supported weed growth.

For small plantings raised beds are nice. It can be difficult to get quality topsoil brought in. I did buy some soil one year from two sources. One was where they had bought an adjacent field and they sold that...very good soil. The other case was what was a strip of land that was listed "organic" soil on the county plat map. It was black and likely peaty...again very good soil.

My raised beds are not bordered and run parallel or adjacent to each other and I could change the size or width of any very easily. I find about zero problem with erosion on them. They are so spongy and absorb the rain easily even in my somewhat high rainfall area.[40 to 50 inches]

thank you everyone for your wonderful replies. I fear I have been bitten by the "garden bug' pretty bad and when I went and looked up "square foot gardening" I fell in love! Easy to care for is my way of doing things, so I will be building the boxes maybe next week. (I priced the boards today and the whole thing will only cost about 20 bucks! I was shocked! I thought for sure they would be more)I am loving this!!!

Once again, thank you!!

I'm not sure where people get the idea that raised beds will not need any tilling - perhaps from people that live in areas that do not go through a deep freeze/thaw cycle or cycles. If it freezes and thaws, it will need to be tilled, or you use a shovel, to break the dirt up a bit.

If I had a good piece of ground, where the soil is good, even if it needs amended, I would never think about raised beds. If I had crappy soil or ground that sloped so significantly that almost any kind of rainfall would run off, or in my case, needing to grow a bunch of veggies on asphalt this year, a raised bed is the only way to go. Thankfully, I don't have to pay for the blocks, dirt, compost, etc., that will make up the bed!

Mike

I'm not sure where people get the idea that raised beds will not need any tilling - perhaps from people that live in areas that do not go through a deep freeze/thaw cycle or cycles. If it freezes and thaws, it will need to be tilled, or you use a shovel, to break the dirt up a bit.

I live in Wisconsin and never till my raised beds. The soil is so loose and tilthy (is that a word?) that I can dig with my hand to the bottom. That's one of the advantages to making one's own soil. You don't have to start with brick like soil and try to amend it until it's nice. Make a nice soil on day 1 and the lack of tillage ensures it never gets broken into a fine particled mess that is soppy wet when it rains and like a brick when it dries.

I have both and personally prefer the non-bordered beds - I find it easier to work with shovel and hoe without bumping up against the sides.

My only recommendation is that if you don't have any toxins in the soil, then don't put any sort of barrier between your current soil and whatever soil you add to the boxes. Roots like to go deep.

We have tried some raised beds, just raised up and not contained. In our case, they dried out faster than the ground level garden's. They are easier for inch gardening. We don't have restrictions on the amount of ground, unlike others, so inch-gardening wasn't a need for us.

We do not use the raised bed method now, since we use several acres of ground. For others it works, but if you are in an area that is dry, your beds will dry faster and need watering more often. A clayey soil would help, since you can build it up with better draining soil.

never in the past decade or more have we dug or tilled our raised beds, simply not necessary. they don't need to be super expensive to put in with fancy edging you can start with a bale garden and need no edges ever, our latest beds are now 4 years old with no formal edging, just use weed barrier system.

len

Here is a link that might be useful: lens garden page

I LOVE my raised beds. I did a "lasagna" gardening in my raised bed. I don't have to till and my worm census in huge. I also have enormous yields (much more than when I had traditional in ground garden).

My husband built me six 4x6 raised beds.

http://gardeningthruit.blogspot.com/

I now have 9 boxes - with one ready to "find room for." One had to be replaced recently, because a board had started to rot, and a vole had found its way inside. Also, in my haste to erect and place it - sometime around 5 or so years ago (maybe it was 10) - I had neglected to put wire mesh on the bottom. This was a big no-no on my part.

Raised bed/boxes are the only way for me. Our soil is sandy on top of clay a few feet down. We are also going into phase #2 of water rationing here in So. Cal., and the water company wants us to cut our usage even more in the months ahead.

I am looking for ways to conserve moisture or recycle water all of the time now, because I would hate to give up even one of my 9 (about to be 10) planter boxes. In the new box (made of 1 ft x 6 ft. (doubled) x 8 ft. long cedar boards, I placed the hardware cloth first on the ground (a screening material), then set the new bottomless box on top. Inside, I placed cardboard on the bottom, with the hopes that it would keep water from leaching through too fast, thus conserving moisture. The depth of my soil will be 12 inches, native soil blended with fresh compost, peat and worm compostings. I'll let it set awhile until the "microherd" breaks it all down, cuz it might heat up a bit.

You will enjoy gardening this way - especially if you are up there in age (I turned 88 a few days ago). It took a bit longer to empty all the dirt out of the old box, and then refill - but my other boxes are filled with lettuce, broccoli, bok choy, snow peas, garlic, onion, etc. (you get the idea), so I wasn't in too big a hurry. But I just had a "brainstorm idea" that I wanted a new box for some sweet potatoes, and hopefully, this will be the one.

You might want to think about putting cages over your newly planted seedlings, if you have birds, bugs, or beasties. They will find your handywork very quickly.

Welcome to the Forums.

Bejay

Bejay,
It was nice to read your post. I've recently retired and for the coming year, I've converted much of my garden into raised beds. I've been gardening here for 39 years so the soil is extremely fertile. Last fall I made 22 frames, some 4 x 4, 4 x 6, and 4 x 10. I did so to garner some experience about whether or not I will be able to continue gardening as I age. I'm led to believe that raised gardens are easier to maintain. So, I'm thrilled to hear about both your raised beds and your age.

Thank you for those accolades. Actually, I'm thrilled about my raised beds, but my age does get a bit bothersome at times. Getting harder to squat and/or kneel, but that's the breaks - (oh no - not breaks!).

Envy you your fertile soil - I recall the glacial plains in the upper part of our country - Dakota and Minnesota - it too seemed to grow just about anything - except citrus maybe. I just planted a banana tree last summer. It got a bit chilly for it last week, and it looked a bit "anemic" but I think it will survive.

Enjoy.

Bejay