To get the rows straight, use string or twine between 2 stakes. You can pull the hoe down the string until it is deep enough. Keep the twine tight to get a nice straight row.

However, WOW, I would love to have spring rains like you mention. Here in Nebraska (almost Wyoming) we plant in the bottom of the furrow to catch every drop of moisture.

To get the rows straight, use string or twine between 2 stakes. You can pull the hoe down the string until it is deep enough. Keep the twine tight to get a nice straight row.

However, WOW, I would love to have spring rains like you mention. Here in Nebraska (almost Wyoming) we plant in the bottom of the furrow to catch every drop of moisture.

To get the rows straight, use string or twine between 2 stakes. You can pull the hoe down the string until it is deep enough. Keep the twine tight to get a nice straight row.

However, WOW, I would love to have spring rains like you mention. Here in Nebraska (almost Wyoming) we plant in the bottom of the furrow to catch every drop of moisture.

To get the rows straight, use string or twine between 2 stakes. You can pull the hoe down the string until it is deep enough. Keep the twine tight to get a nice straight row.

However, WOW, I would love to have spring rains like you mention. Here in Nebraska (almost Wyoming) we plant in the bottom of the furrow to catch every drop of moisture.

I'm just getting ready to start my own vegetable garden for the first time, so I don't know much, but I did read somewhere that in some parts of the country, you plant on top of the furrow, in others in the ditch. Here in California with the hot, hot summers, I think we plant in the ditch because it is cooler and more moist than the mound.

If you don't create raised beds, sounds to me as if you need to make raised rows, maybe 4-6 inches high (?), maybe 8-12 inches across, and sow your seeds there. But there's still no guarantee that floods would respect what you've done unless the sides of the rows could hold out against running water between them.

In your situation, raised beds are highly recommended, and deeper than the common 6 inches. 12 inches deep would probably work -- that's a lot of soil you'd have to add to give it that depth. That way, the soil is held within the frame, won't wash away, and heavy rainwater drains into the soil beneath your bed. Unless the flooding is deeper than 12 inches, you won't lose your row structure or your seedlings.

Hi Marti8a,

I use a hoe to make rows for plants like peppers that need good drainage.
I start at one end and go down the garden pulling soil up into a pile about six inches high and as straight as possible.
I then move to the other side of the pile I've created and pull soil up going down the row to the end.
Finally I take a metal garden rake and run it across the top of the triangular dirt pile I've created. This flattens the row out and it's ready to plant on.
Be sure that the slopes on the sides of the row are no steeper than 45 degrees as any less will cause erosion of the row.

I stretch a string from permanent anchors on my back fence to the irrigation outlet for my drip tube. I dig a 6" deep trench to plant potatoes, a 4" deep furrow for corn planting. Both of these are hilled up as the crop grows to eventually form an elevated row.

Melons and tomatoes are planted on top of low hills, with a shallow, water holding crater on top.

Everything else is planted on top of a ridge I rake up and flatten off on top. Usually about 4-5" high (above the paths formed by raking dirt off to build the elevated rows. I try to make the elevated rows about a foot wide. A drip irrigation tube runs down the top of each raised row.

I have a small slope to my garden. Rain water will drain, but does not form rushing rivers. Have had no water erosion to my elevated rows.

I till the soil by hand using a hoe. I don't use raised beds, but I plant intensively so that there aren't bare areas that will sprout weeds. Until things fill in, I put mulch down.

So, there are now straight rows, only two foot "beds" that are filled with different kinds of plants.

With raised beds you can plant on the "flat". On regular flat layouts for early rows in the Midwest you better ridge some with an eye to drainage...because of rains and early wetness. In sandy and drier areas, you would want to go lower.

I have the first two situations.