Bed Types

One of the main reasons to make skinny raised beds is to keep size-9 gardening clogs out of the soil. Stepping on fluffy soil you've slaved over is kinda painful.

Really good-for-plants soil is half dirt and half pore space between the soil particles. Little bugs, from worms to little single-celled beasties, tunnel through the soil in the course of their day, enriching the soil and doing about a million little jobs. This "Microherd" is essential to soil's ability to nurture healthy plants (we'll get into the 'how' later). Pore space is both the result of and essential to this microherd's wellbeing.

There are a bunch of different types of beds. Flat beds are easiest to put together, but they stay cold longer, are prone to flooding and can be easily stepped on -- crushing pore space and microherd. Overall, flat beds are a great reduction in warmth and therefore planting time. Here in the Bay Area, that might not be such a horrible thing because we don't get snow... but then again tomatoes and melons are lovely and need lots of heat.

Okay, okay, and I really like showing off tomatoes in May. *smug smile*


Raised Beds with curved sides work well, though they do erode and shed water like any slope. The curved sides can be formed with pipe, hands, or whatever you like.


Bermed Beds, from French Biointensive (French market gardens) have the sides planted so there is less erosion and water runoff. The sides are usually planted with lettuces and other small things.


Raised edged beds are more... well... neat. They are also more expensive. I once visited a set of raised beds that was beautifully edged with white-barked tree limbs, arranged around a diamond-shaped herb bed, with the paths laid out in orange-pink Arizona sandstone. The whole setup was breathtaking. Also, those tree branches were perfect place for snails to breed. So don't think that raised beds solve all problems.

But I likes 'em.



Fun Fact for this post: the average person in the US consumes about 322 lbs of veg & soft fruit annually, and 200 sq feet can yield over 300 lb of veg & soft fruit over a 4 to 6-month growing season at intermediate Grow Biointensive yields.