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Get Rid of Your Gardening Aches and Pains With Raised Beds!

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Written by Tom Johnson

Saturday, 03 May 2008

by TomJohnson

I'm a card carrying member of the baby boomer generation and I know what it's like to find you can't manage some of the things you used to do, or you can, but you do them a lot slower. My gardening ability comes to mind as an area that now requires some extra thought, a little bit of adjustable thinking can produce some cunning ways of getting around some problems. One of the best ideas to help the gardener with age or handicap related problems is to make good use of raised beds.

They don't have to be anything fancy, just some timber frames about 2 feet high and 3 feet wide is plenty. This simple solution helps in allowing people with the previously mentioned age related dilemma or anyone with restricted movement, such as a wheelchair, to continue to enjoy quality time in their garden.

There are lots of other benefits to having raised beds other than easy access. For instance your yield of vegetables can be greatly improved, weeds are less and the few you might get are easier to manage, pest control is also much easier and any problems you might have with your soil are eliminated.

You're not restricted to just growing vegetables of course, you can grow just about anything in your raised beds. There's different types of fruit, the huge variety of herbs and the even larger number of flowers. Any plant that needs a well drained soil is a candidate for your new garden.

Your garden beds will need less water because you can plant your crops a lot closer together than you would normally. Then there's the added advantage of less weeds because of less room to grow and shady conditions.

You're also going to be able to extend the growing season, because you can start sowing seeds earlier. This together with better yield, will have you harvesting for longer and enjoying a bigger crop from a smaller area.

You'll be able to use rich, well composted soil in your raised beds, so any type of soil problems you've had in your garden become a thing of the past. This way of gardening allows you to overcome any shortcomings you have in your soil.

Another great benefit of raised bed gardening is the fact that the gardener doesn't walk on the soil in which the plants are growing. This helps prevent the soil from being packed down, so the roots can grow through the soil more readily.

Since you'll be filling your raised beds with good fresh soil, the odds of infecting your plants with any disease is far less and pests are much easier to manage in a limited area. Again this adds to the overall increase in your harvest and the quality of your crops.

About the Author:

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