Are raised beds necessary?

This weekend, I taught my first in-person workshop at North End Organic Nursery. I’m so grateful to have a nursery like NEON in Boise. They offer so many wonderful products for organic gardeners and I relied on their classes immensely to learn how to garden in Boise. It was a truly full circle moment for me to teach there, and I can’t wait to do it again.

Enjoying a post-workshop snack of tomatoes grown by one of my clients!

The gardeners who attended my workshop learned all about my reasons for gardening in raised beds, and how we can grow better gardens in Boise that way. Despite the photographic evidence, people ask me all the time if raised beds are really necessary.

While I believe there are no wrong ways to garden, I do believe we can grow better gardens in raised beds. Here are my three top reasons why.

#1 Raised Beds Maximize Productivity

I never thought of myself as a control freak until I started gardening. By controlling the depth of our beds, the soil that goes in them and the structures we can add, we can control a lot in our gardens and maximize their outputs.

First, in raised beds, we can control our soil. In Boise, our native soils don’t have a whole lot of nutrients, and their composition can be overly clay in one area and overly sand in another. Raised beds let us start with the very best sandy loam soil from the beginning, meaning we can start enjoying the garden so much faster.

I <3 Nasturtiums, and Nasturtiums <3 deep raised beds

By controlling the depth of our ideal soil type, we can give plants more space to root below ground. When you plant directly in the ground, whether it’s in a clay -like soil like we see on the Boise Bench or a sandy soil that we see in the foothills - its roots are going to sprawl outward and stay fairly shallow, closer to the surface of the soil. It’s just hard for plants to get farther down in our native soil. This means each plant needs a lot of space so that its roots don’t annoy its neighbor. The instructions on seed packets for spacing actually apply to a row garden rather than a raised bed because they assume you’ll be planting your seeds in the ground, as most gardeners and farmers do.

When we garden in raised beds, we can actually plant things closer together. We can only do that though by giving roots an opportunity to burrow much deeper underground in a raised bed. The plant will also grow more vertically, too. Plants like peas, which would normally take up lots of space, can be trained up with trellises to make every inch of your small garden space count. I even plant tomatoes, winter squashes (pumpkins), cucumbers, melons and beans on trellises to maximize space in my garden.

These cucumbers created a trellis within a trellis!

By controlling the soil type and depth in raised beds, we’re also creating better drainage than we can get in the ground. Because our beds are deep, mixed with a container-specific mix and we use drip irrigation, our plants only take in the water they need. Consistent water, in my experience, has made an incredible difference in our gardens. Especially in such a dry climate, the good drainage that raised beds provide prevents a lot of issues and gives plants the opportunity to take what they need and drain the rest. It also saves water by reducing run-off that can occur when we plant in the ground. With deep raised beds that have a specific type of soil for containers, drainage can be controlled and modified.

Raised beds can also extend our growing season super easily. First of all, the soil in your raised beds warms faster than that in the ground, so we can plant weeks ahead of schedule. Plus, we can easily add covers to our raised beds to protect plants from frost or to warm them even more. Covers also do wonders for pest control.

#2 Raised Beds Optimize Comfort

In order for us to truly make gardening part of our lifestyle, we have to want to do it all the time. Let me tell you, I tend two gardens at my home. One is in raised beds, and one is in the ground. I spent a heck of a lot of time kneeling in the dirt, battling weeds and water issues in my in-ground garden. In my raised beds, I spend maybe 10% of that total time, and all I’m doing is pruning back some plants, adding compost and fertilizer, harvesting and replanting. What takes me an hour in my raised beds, takes a whole day in my in-ground garden.

Why waste time on weeds? You can grow plants intensively and just spend time pruning!

Weeding has to be every gardener’s least favorite task. If you plant in deep raised beds, and do so intensively like I do, you’ll hardly ever have to weed again. Certainly, some weed seeds end up in our soil from compost or from blowing in, but for the most part, you are just tending in other, way more enjoyable ways. 

Plus, if your raised beds are deep, like mine are, you don’t have to bend over hardly at all. In fact, I spend more time on my tippy toes tending to trellising plants than I do bending at the knees or waist. I’m young, only 30 years old, and if I want to be gardening for the next 60 years, I need to preserve my body. I do that the best in raised beds. 

#3 Raised Beds Maximize Beauty

As people, we gravitate toward beautiful spaces, and your garden can be one of those spaces before it’s even planted. Raised garden beds elevate your outdoor space and provide lasting beauty all year long. Like I said, even if your plants aren’t growing yet, your raised bed is a hardscaping piece that becomes an integral feature of your landscape.

I mean, who wouldn’t want to look at this every day?

Plus, no matter the style of your home, there’s a raised garden bed to compliment it. Think of your garden as another room in your home. You want it to look beautiful and feel peaceful, not frustrating. If your garden is part of your home’s design and decor, you’ll tend to it more often. Plus, unlike a bathroom renovation, you get to eat the fruits of your labor in the garden.

You can grow a ton in a raised beds, spend less time kneeling in the dirt and have something beautiful to look at when the day is through. If you’re wondering what a raised bed kitchen garden would look like in your space, click the button below to book a consult with me or send me a note and we can talk further.