When is enough, enough? Well as far as I am concerned, you can never have enough veggie beds!
We had some space available in the pool area, so I decided that we could put in a small wicking bed for salad greens. This bed is close to the back door so it is going to be idea for pick-and-come-again lettuce varieties. The position is perfect and it will only get morning sun and then shade from about 1 pm onwards.
I searched through my wood pile and found some old hard red gum that I had saved from the kitchen renovation from a few years ago. This wood needed to be pre-drilled before fastening it together. There wasn’t enough of this red gum to make two layers, so I found some untreated pine that was so easy to cut and drill compared to the hardwood.
Here is the bottom layer which will be resting on the old cement that used to surround the pool area. We couldn’t rip it up, so built on top of it instead. Hopefully the hardwood with inhibit any rotting that may occur and it should last for a good many years.
And right at the back of this photo is the completed bed in situ. I took a long shot to show it in relation to the shower base that I made last weekend for Kim. The large pebbles came from a pile that we moved when we constructed the raised garden beds in the front yard. Everything gets a second life around here!
This close up shows the bugle head screws that I used. I fastened the wood with butt joints, and also fastened it vertically. I back filled with some of the rock, and you would think it had always been there.
Tomorrow, if I get time, I will add a liner that I have in the shed and add the slotted ag pipe and fit a filling tube. I have some spare soil that I saved from the front yard beds, so I have all the makings. It is not going to be the deepest wicking bed, but it will suffice for lettuce greens as they have shallow roots.
After this weeks heat wave passes, forecast between 35 to 42 C all week, I will plant it out to give the seedlings a chance.
It just goes to show that you can squeeze in an edible garden bed just about anywhere.
I agree – never too many veggie beds!
I’m convinced wicking beds / boxes are the way to go. The sheer abundance of the growth in the wicking beds here compared to the soil beds is unbelievable.
Now that I’ve paid off the mortgage, my attention is turning to investments and PROJECTS. This place will be a food forest come hook or by crook!
Hi Gavin,
When you design a bed like this, specifically for a particular crop, what do you do about crop rotation? Do you rotate or amend the soil and grow the same crop again? I’m curious, because I grew potatoes in a perfect spot this year, under a pine tree and would like to amend and grow them there again next season, but I’m worried about a drop in yield. What do you think? Thanks, as always for your time!
Sue
You only have too many veggie beds when you are growing more than you can eat and give away or more than you can manage fulltime! 😉 Your salad bed sounds great and it will be a great place to sit and munch fresh from the garden too. Would your shallow garden be deep enough to plant those little bulb carrots too? I know they lack the deep taproot and they also tolerate less sun too I believe. 🙂
Now that is a great small project with long term benefits. Perfect location for lettuces. All that sunlight reflected off the pool and heat from the wall, me thinks that it will be great in winter also.