Raised Bed Garden: Where To Put It?

If you’ve read much here at 3BY, it won’t surprise you to hear that Salty and I think gardens are a really valuable prep for many kinds of emergencies.  Raised bed gardens are particularly productive, being filled with good soil with no weed seeds.  That good soil solves one big garden problem, but plants like their habitats just right, so there are still some things to think about before you plunk one down just anywhere.  So what do the plants need and how does it impact siting?

Sun!

That’s the energy source, so all plants need some.  Many like full sun (6-8 hrs direct per day).  Others actually get into a non-productive energy cycle, photosynthetically spinning their wheels if they get too much sun.  Some use high light levels as a signal to ‘bolt’:  the leaves get bitter and quit growing while the plant concentrates on making seed.  How do you know which plants have which needs?  Read the packages (spring and fall crops don’t do well in full sun), and practice.

Pro tip:  If you’re building the garden fairly early in spring or late in winter, think about how sun angle changes in prime garden time and plan for that.  A bed that gets a lot of sun in the spring and fall but is shaded for more of the day as the sun rises higher in the sky is a nice place to plant things like lettuces, spinach, and radishes.

The hog panel (sturdy big fencing) at the left of the bed is on the north side of the bed, so I can grow climbing crops without blocking sun for the rest of the bed. You can also put such climbers a little bit more south, and plant a line of shade-desiring greens just north of them.

Water

This is no problem if you’re watering from city water and a hose, but being a prepper, thinking about gravity feed from water collection is a great idea. I built my raised beds before we got to building our roof water collection system or the drip irrigation to take it to the garden beds.  As a result I’ve got one raised bed (fortunately small) that is uphill when the water barrels get low. Feel free to learn from my error and put the garden below wherever your water collection might be if possible.  Also, very long hoses create drag that make water delivery hard, so closer to the water source is better.

If you want some thoughts on actually building one of those drip systems, here ya go:

Installing Drip Irrigation: An Affordable Do-It-Yourself Prep For Spring

Soil depth

Here’s another raised bed mistake you don’t want to follow in my footsteps about.  (See a trend here?  Errors are great teachers — it’s why I am such a stronger believer in practice.) I didn’t think what was under my raised beds, because “Hey, they’re raised after all; I’m putting the dirt I’m planting in above ground level!  That means I don’t have to Dig!” <– thought Spice.   Wrong, but thanks for playing.

Well, half wrong.  This reasoning works for shallow-rooted crops.  You know, like the ones I now plant every year over the raised bed I placed right over the line that runs from the propane tank to the house.  I’d *like* to have more flexibility in that bed, because crop rotation is good for plant growth and parasite suppression; but nope, not in that particular bed.

What I hadn’t considered is that while almost everything is planted in the top eight inches of soil, some don’t grow properly if they can’t push their roots deeper (which is hard in undug soil); and others can’t be harvested if you can’t dig more than a few inches down.  I tell ya, I’ve pulled some Really Funky looking carrots out of beds that were never dug below ground level:  Vigorous and fat in the added topsoil, stopping abruptly where the ground got hard like little barrels.

The root crops like potatoes, carrots, and beets can’t be harvested properly even if they will force their way into the hard soil if you don’t dare stick a shovel in there.

Don’t know what’s underneath the area where you want to place the raised bed?  Here’s a post we made on how to find out, and some other reasons to know what’s under your land:

Preppers: Know Where Cables and Gas Lines Run

Freedom from harassment:

Who would harass your innocent plants?  Well, ok, YOU will at the right time of the season, but not until then.  Who else?

Home Owner’s Associations or other community-based controls like municipal regulations.  For some insane reason, some people are offended by plants that have a function in addition to being pretty.  Some places regulate if you have a garden at all.  Others limit them to out of sight areas like back yards.  Know your local regs so you don’t have to tear down a garden mid-season. (If there are such regulations, there are ways to stay within their bounds (at least in spirit) and still get some food….but that’s another post.)

What neighbor could object to such a lovely ornamental garden? They don’t have to know it’s edible.

And then there’s the competitors for the water and light.  Some plants do not work and play well with others.  In fact, plants are the original grand masters of chemical warfare.  Some species make toxins that their roots release into the soil that inhibit many other species.  Walnut trees are our local problem children for this here in Missouri.  Look around at nearby trees and give them a quick DuckDuckGo search.  “[species name] inhibits” worked for me.

Raised bed gardens are no fun to move, so it’s best to think them through before building them.  But not think for too long:  An imperfect choice that’s built is more effective than a Perfect Plan.