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AR15.COM
9/30/2012 12:43:25 AM EDT
With fall upon us the wife is thinking of redoing the 30 by 40 garden plot with raised beds.    The current garden is well maintained with decent soil maintenance, tilled and fenced in.   She wants to get away from this.  Besides following the happy wife, happy life rule, I'm looking to the group to see what the benefits of having raised beds will be .
9/30/2012 3:29:17 AM EDT
[#1]
With the ginormous amount of weeds I'm getting lately I'm going to convert half of the back 50x50 plot to raised beds for low growing plants. The initial cost is going to be worth trying to weed through weeds to get to the good plants. It's very easy to remove weeds from raised beds if you don't let them get established in the bed. Also next year I'm going to torch the weeds as they come up instead of the usual weed eating crap I go through every year. I've got too much garden to put down weed mat.

Another benefit is with the controled soil in the beds you can plant small seed plants without having them bound up in a clay crust.
9/30/2012 3:29:46 AM EDT
[#2]
If you're putting raised beds on already productive soil the the only benefits I can see are that the beds might be more attractive from a landscaping perspective and you won't have to bend as far to weed and harvest.
10/1/2012 2:44:41 AM EDT
[#3]
Weed more and keep the existing garden.

I would apply grass killer around the perimeter and manually weed the beds.
10/1/2012 7:32:48 AM EDT
[#4]
I'm a fan of raised beds.  Easier to control.
The 1 downside in my area is the beds will dry out faster than the ground.
10/1/2012 10:02:12 AM EDT
[#5]
Quoted:
The 1 downside in my area is the beds will dry out faster than the ground.


That's true.  That makes it a negative in a dry environment, but a positive in an area with especially wet spring times.  I like raised beds because they're easy to weed and tilling before planting is as simple as turning the soil over with a garden fork.

10/3/2012 10:44:19 AM EDT
[#6]
If you own a Tiller, raised beds are a Sh!t Ton more work than a regular garden with a tiller.

Raised bed are for those who don't own a tiller.

99.9% of American farms were raised beds until the 1700's when the horse drawn Plow and cultivation became commonplace. Then it virtually ceased to exist as it's a ton more work versus any mechanical tillage.