Hello everyone. My name is Bridget
and today we're going to talk about the five mistakes to avoid when starting a raised bed garden,
but first go ahead and click that subscribe button and that little bell notification next to it
so you don't miss any great Kellogg Garden videos. Kellogg Garden is bringing in
backyard gardeners, master gardeners, homesteaders, landscape
and garden professionals.
You name it? They're coming in to help us grow even more this next season.
So make sure you don't miss it. Hit that subscribe button
and any resources we talk about will be in the description,
so make sure to check out the description for helpful links.
Okay, so let's get started, the five mistakes to avoid when starting a raised bed garden.
I am the perfect person to talk about this
because I've made them all. They're actually probably more than five mistakes,
I could make five of these videos
and still not cover all of them. Some I made on purpose, some I made on
accident. If you've already made some of the mistakes,
I'll talk about how to get around them.
But if I can stop you from making the mistake
or help you avoid it then I'll feel good about that
too. Alright, so first mistake is bad location. In some cases, again,
you may have limited space, where you just really don't have that much control over. For me,
I'm on about three acres of land right now,
which is great. It's phenomenal but where I can put these raised beds.
It's a temporary location, so,
I'm a little bit limited on space.
So the first thing is to look at where you want to put the beds
and the most important thing in gardening is sun, soil, and water,
right? So we want to look at all those things. Right now,
This is the East, so right up here,
this is East .That's West, that’s South and that's North. Now,
I have some beds that I put over here in this fenced area
and then I have some beds that I have over here as well up
against the house. So the good thing about this location is in the spring right here
I get lots and lots of sun, but back here
I don't and part of the problem is this beautiful hill and these citrus trees.
So the sun rises right over there in the spring but in the fall,
which we’re in right now, it actually rises a bit more this way.
So this area in the spring gets about 10 hours
of sunshine but that little caged area that I'm going to talk about where all the
mistakes are that area only gets about eight hours, six to eight
and when we go into fall the amount of sunshine we're getting is going down even more
for both locations.
So when you're thinking about where to put your raised beds sun is key. Now,
I can grow things with less sun
but some of the things that I like to to grow tomatoes for instance did not do well over there.
They did do well over here and these little cherry tomatoes actually,
well, these aren’t cherry tomatoes but the smaller tomatoes, the little pear shaped ones,
they don't need as much sun
as some of my big beautiful heirlooms did.
So knowing your sun is really really important.
Now, I'll show you another location. These beds right here are actually on wheels.
That's one way that I'm getting around my location,
but these beds over here are not. Now the second mistake to avoid is
not to pay attention to your water sources.
Now, you can run a hose and I've got a water source right here.
I've actually got another one on the side of the house,
but running a hose and watering by hand,
you may do that in the beginning but later you may want an irrigation system.
You may want drip irrigation because it does make things a lot easier.
So knowing where your water sources are and how you're going to utilize them is really important.
So think about that because if you're too far away,
you're going to limit your options. Now,
the third mistake to avoid is not thinking about those pests. Wonderful pests that are out there.
This big guy here could be a pest but he's not the one I'm talking about.
We on this property have ground squirrels.
We have field mice. We don't have groundhogs, moles or voles,
which is good but if you do have those ground diggers,
then you need to think about that
when you're building your beds. The beds that I have on wheels are completely enclosed,
but the ones that I've built over here that we’ll take a closer look at, those are open on the bottom.
So, if I had groundhogs, moles, voles anything that likes to dig
up and eat the roots, the plant from below then I would want to cover the
bed where we're going to lay the bed first
and you can use chicken wire
or you can use something a little hardier like we've used for this little trellis.,
So right here,
you can use hardware cloth you can use some of the
stronger metal lay, that down before you
do the bed, before you build the bed right below it
and then once you put your bed up you'll be able to protect your plants from those
little ground critters that like to eat from below.
When it comes to ground squirrels on the other
hand and mice you're going to have to protect from the top.
Okay, so now we're inside that fenced-in enclosure that was behind me
and we're going to talk about mistake number four to avoid
when building your raised beds
and that’s in design and there's two parts to design. There's cost and then there's function.
So this space here is 10 feet by 10 feet.
So I'm limited on what I can put in here. The other area of our property
I'm not limited on space. So in designing those beds I was thinking about cost. Here,
I still wanted big beds but it's a temporary space for us,
I'm just testing some things out.
These beds aren't going to be here that long and I wanted to go pretty big with the beds.
I recommend getting yourself some paper
and drawing everything out
and then really doing some homework
and looking at costs of lumber and soil as you're designing this.
So I wanted as big a beds as possible.
Most of us dom you want to grow as much as possible.
I wanted to grow lots of veggies out
here and then also companion plant bringing some flowers
and some other plants that would help with pollinators and deter pests.
So I decided I wanted to push the beds up against the fence.
These beds are actually seven feet by two and a half feet which gives me plenty of space in the middle,
but I can't get to the beds from that side.
The fence is there and then I pushed it all the way against the fence up here.
So I've access to the beds from two sides and I was okay with that.
I really was, but what I didn't think about was the future and this trellis behind me.
So we decided or I decided to put up this arch because I wanted to go vertical I've grown luffa on it,
cucumbers, and now peas. It's a DIY project cattle panel that we cut
and then just screwed in, so I can take it off at any point,
but what happens is I can't get to that back corner very easily.
So it limits me, I can do a bit of acrobatics back there,
but it's not the easiest. If I had thought about it, I probably
would have made these beds two feet shorter
and given myself access on that side.
So in your planning, I recommend that you really draw things
out and think about what you're going
to be growing, what you want to grow, and what you might grow later.
Look at the sun, we've already talked about it. You know the
first thing to consider is sun exposure.
You can write that out also, but definitely designed this out.
So the other thing on the lumber here,
I wasn't limited on cost there either. I ended up going on Facebook Marketplace
and seeing if anybody was getting rid of wood in my area.
I found somebody, gave them a few bucks
and I got to take all of the wood I wanted.
So then it was just about cutting it down and building the beds. When getting reclaimed wood
just make sure that you check the source of the wood.
I didn't want wood that was painted
or had been treated with anything in case that leaks to into the soil.
So keep that in mind when you're building it. Now,
if I were buying the wood like we did
for the other beds then I have to I have to look at the cost of the wood
and you can get your 2 x 4’s in 8 feet or 10 feet. Cedar, I think, in my local hardware store
was 8 feet, redwood is 10 feet.
There's like a two dollar difference. For a bed like this
I would need for four pieces.
So I would probably go for the redwood unless I was going to cap it off,, right so I could sit on it.
Then I would need more lumber for that.
I probably need five or six, maybe five for that.
So that would be a factor. I would put this in here
and make sure that I'm looking at that cost. Cedar, actually
it's only a dollar fifty different, cedarwood cost
me $10 for eight feet and then redwood for the 10-foot would cost me $11.50.
So I would factor that in when deciding on the beds.
The second thing to factor in is putting soil in the beds. So to do that
you're going to actually go from the inside of the beds. On this one
my length is 80 inches, my width is 27 inches and then my depth is 9 inches.
So taking that information then I'm going to go online
and use the handy dandy soil calculator to figure out how
many bags of soil I need to put in this bed,
and we'll have links to resources in the description.
So you go down and click that.
When you first start it will ask you
what your project is on the Kellogg website soil calculator put in a garden bed.
Then you put in your dimensions. It starts with feet,
I switch into inches and then from there
it'll tell you by cubic feet how much you need. You can then also, depending
on what soil you're getting and whether you're buying it into two cubic foot,
three cubic foot or larger and how many bags. So when I did the calculation for this two cubic feet,
I would need six bags.
It would be 11 and 1/4, 11.25 cubic feet for one bed.
So I'd need six bags and six bags.
So again when you're factoring in that cost write it all down,
so you're not surprised later
and you're not making tons to trips back and forth to your garden center to get that soil.
Okay, so that leads me to mistake number five and that is not using the right soil in your raised beds.
Now when you're building, when you're growing in a raised beds,
it's an enclosed environment.
Even though ours are open to the native soil it’s still an enclosed environment
and you're going to deal with different things in an enclosed environment.
There's more soil compaction in this, we want well-draining soil,
we want nutrient rich soil. These plants take up quite a bit of nutrients from the soil
so we want to start off with a really good base.
I'm still going to have to amend the soil
as these plants are growing
and then next season before I plant I'll amend again
because these plants have taken up so much nutrients.
Plus there's been compaction,
so I'll be amending but you really want to start off with good soil in the beginning
and when you go into your your local garden center
you're going to see soil, potting soil topper.
You're going to see raised bed soil, garden soil, all sorts of different names
Garden soils are meant to be mixed with your native soil,
right? Your native soil, if it's clay-based,
it's not going to be well draining. You might need to amend for that.
You might need to amend for pH
because growing edibles, right, we need a good
pH for them and your soil may not be as nutrient and mineral rich as you want,
right? So you would amend
for that. Here on raised beds and containers were using raised bed soil or potting soil.
It's actually been formulated for these environments.
It's been formulated
for the proper pH, good drainage, and to be nutrient-rich and that's what we want.
If you start off with the right soil, you're going to start your plants off
right. So and that's a big one.
Remember we talked about the three things that are going to give us success soil, sun,
and water. So don't skimp on the soil.
Okay, so let's recap our five mistakes to avoid. One is sun exposure,
you want to make sure that you understand your sun exposure
and you have the proper sun exposure
for what you're growing. Two is water, if you can you want to be
as close to a water source
as possible or at the very least plan out your watering
because you might water by hand in the beginning but as your garden grows
it's going to be hard to maintain consistent watering.
So you may bring in a drip irrigation system like this
and you just want to make sure that you planned out your beds and they are in the right place
and you can get that water out there quickly. Number three is pests, thinking about those pests,
especially your ground pests. If you're going to build beds that are
open on the bottom then take into an account
if you have those diggers that like to come up
and eat your plants from below go ahead
and put something down like a chicken wire or a hardware cloth.
So you're protecting them and then number four
is design of the beds, designed for cost and function, right?
Make sure your spacing is correct.
And then number five is soil. Use the right soil, make sure that you're
starting yourself off with a great foundation
and then you're going to grow from there
because you are going to need some organic fertilizers and nutrients maybe compost, worm castings.
There's all these things that you're going to get into
as you're growing to meet the needs of the individual plants that you're growing.
Okay, so those are the five mistakes to avoid.
I appreciate you joining me today, and I will see you guys soon,
so happy gardening.