Raised Garden Beds Vs. Traditional Gardens
Building a traditional garden bed is easier than starting a raised bed garden. With a few minutes digging, a ground-level garden bed is completed and ready to plant. A raised bed must be planned carefully, and strongly built of long-lasting material by someone who knows what they are doing. Then, the soil must be transported in to fill the beds. Does this Spark an idea?
-
Easy to Set Up
-
Traditional garden beds can cover much more ground simply by digging more space. They can be covered up with grass and the bed moved to an entirely different part of the yard. The maintenance factor can be low to non-existent, and the cost may be minimal.
High Cost to Start
-
The cost for building supplies and labor to create a raised bed may be substantial, and maintenance must be vigilant to ensure it remains sound. If not done carefully and with an understanding of the dynamics of soil pressure and movement, the bed can easily collapse under its own weight. Raised beds are often much easier to work in since they bring the plants up off the ground. The soil can be tailored to the exact composition that each plant needs for optimum growth.
-
Early Start
-
The soil in raised beds heats up faster in the spring, allowing a early start to the garden. With the addition of holders for a frame on which to drape polyurethene sheets a raised bed garden can easily double as a spring greenhouse and give up to two months jump on planting over traditional beds.
Overcoming Problems
-
Soil in a raised bed can contain very little to no native soil, in cases where local soil is poor or you are trying to grow specific plants with special soil requirements. Alternately a traditional bed is primarily native soil, with as much or as little amendment as the gardener chooses to add. A traditional garden bed often gives the satisfaction of overcoming problems with pests, diseases, weeds and poor soil conditions.
-
References
Resources
- Photo Credit Jupiterimages/BananaStock/Getty Images
