5 Benefits of Growing in A Garden Bed
What are the benefits of gardening with elevated beds? quite a lot! Check out these compelling reasons to plant your next garden on an elevated bed.
Maybe you found a gorgeous elevated garden bed on your friend's Facebook recently, or a colleague is enthusiastic about her new elevated bed. You can't help asking: What's the fuss? Let's use these five reasons to explain why overhead bed gardening is worth all the buzz.
1. You know that your plants are getting high-quality soil.
Having good soil is essential to gardening success, and in an elevated bed, you can completely control it. You don't need to be satisfied with the underground that Mother Nature has decided to give you. You can buy some premixed nutrient soil. It is premixed, so it is the ideal weight and texture for planting large and beautiful plants. And you can rest easy, because you don't have to worry about fighting against soil borne diseases or too much clay or malnutrition - these are your worries when you are planting underground.
If you already have an elevated bed and do not plan to change the soil, you can buy some premixed soil to add to your old soil. When used as directed, it will help replenish depleted nutrients, renew water retention and restore soil structure, enabling your plants to thrive.
2. You will get a longer growth period.
In spring, you can't plant until the soil is warm enough. Guess what? The soil in the elevated bed heats up faster than the soil under it, which means you can plant your garden faster. You can also plant and harvest plants in autumn (or even winter, if you live in parts of the south) by covering plants in your elevated bed garden with frost blankets.
3. You can grow more.
Traditional underground gardens are planted in rows, but who wants tradition? On the elevated bed, you can put the plants closer together, because you do not need walking space between rows. This means you have more room for growth! Take shrub beans as an example. Instead of planting seedlings 8 inches apart in rows of 18 inches apart, you can just plant them 8 inches apart - in any direction. This will still provide enough space for the root to grow.
4. You can customize your garden.
This is a cooler thing about the elevated bed garden: you can design it to suit your own unique style and personality. Are you artistic? Your elevated bed can be constructed of recycled stone and decorated with sea glass. The stronger one? Your may be made of cedar wood, which looks more practical. Not ready to submit yet? A makeshift bed made of straw bales can work for you as a wall. Our opinion? It's all about you!
Remember we said you could leave less space between plants? Well, it also means a big "less" for you: less time spent on garden chores. Look, because the plants are closer, the leaves of many of your plants will touch, which will help cover the soil, so you don't need to water too much. This also means that there is less room for weeds to enter. Also, remember all the beautiful new soil you added to your bed? Unlike many underground beds, there are no weed seeds. Additional tip: If you cover the plants (a common practice for people growing on elevated beds), you will eventually block most of the sunlight needed for weed growth, making it more difficult for them to break through. Yes, this is definitely a case of less is more - less work, more time!