I've enjoyed reading everyone's responses so far, and have even tried to
commit some choice phrases and concepts to memory. For what it's worth,
though, here's another--narrower--perspective on finding a suitable
growing medium for roll-under beds such as yours (and mine--I'll send
pictures to you off-list, if you're interested), which by design don't
contain the soil layers needed to host a sustainable food web:
For better or worse, using such beds amounts to container gardening, and
therefore requires the same strategies that any of us would employ for
growing vegetables in a planter--focussing on specialized approaches to
moisture retention, tilth and nutrient balance, and accepting the fact
that our "inputs" will inevitably exceed our "outputs." I have grown
greens successfully in one such bed, measuring 30"x60"x6" deep (and
weighing in at 200 pounds!), open to the air at the bottom like yours,
which I carted around in my pickup and off-loaded onto a casket dolly
(!) for a couple of years for demonstration purposes at schools, fairs
and festivals. It always looked great, although the produce may have had
some (supermarket quality) nutrient deficits. As I recall, my original
growing medium consisted of a couple of big bags of donated ProMix,
along with perhaps a third more, by volume, of my own finished
yard-waste compost; and I regularly used a weak fish emulsion solution
for watering.
Perhaps if you found a way to funnel the runoff/leachates into a
container beneath the beds to reuse for irrigation, you might actually
begin to approach some of the efficiencies of an in-ground bed.
Best wishes!
Kasey Henneman wrote:
Hello Everyone,
Here in Dayton Ohio we have a one year old accessible garden at the local
Access Center. We have 4 roll-under beds and 2 raised beds. The garden did
pretty well for its first year but we have had trouble keeping the roll-under
beds watered. The beds were purchased kits and the bottom of the bed is just
lattice, landscape cloth, and plastic mesh. The depth of the beds is only about
6-7 inches deep. This depth Is important for the bed to be tall enough to roll
under and low enough to reach over. We have done some heavy mulching and
installed some slow watering milk-jugs to encourage water absorption. We did
this late in the season can't say yet if this will be enough to keep water in
the beds just yet. I have the feeling we might need to rebuild the bottom of
the beds but would like to avoid doing this if possible.
We have also had issue with growing anything in the beds. The beds were filled
with fresh compost and we only attempted to grow shallow rooted things like
lettuce and annual herbs. The crops were not successful the first time (most
likely) due to lack of water, however, most recently they were planted with
mustard, lettuce, and maybe peas and watered often and still did not produce.
Any ideas?!
Thanks!
Kasey
Kasey Henneman
Grow With Your Neighbors Program Assistant
Five Rivers MetroParks
1375 E. Siebenthaler Ave.
Dayton, OH 45414
O // 937-277-6545 x1617
F // 937-277-6546
[email protected]
[cid:[email protected]] Visit http://www.metroparks.org and get
out for an adventure in your parks!
P
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