What is a raised bed and what are the advantages?
A raised bed is normally a box-shaped, above ground level garden bed produced from a weather-resistant material, for planting flowers or vegetables in.
Raised beds for flowers or vegetables have several advantages, some shown below:
- The most important is the comfortable working height, which means less strain on the back as you will not have to lean over as much when planting, weeding or maintaining the bed contents. For people with back problems, who still wish to pursue a garden, raised beds are ideal.
- The soil temperature in raised beds will be higher than normal ground soil, which means plants will grow and thrive better as well as an early harvest, extending the gardening season.
- When preparing the vegetable / flower beds, branches, twigs, leaves and other garden waste can be composted directly into the bed. The type soil can be decided at this point.
- Soil will be less compacted in raised beds, this will help the plants to grow as they will be able to “breath”
- Kit form raised beds are available to purchase so they are not as difficult to build as they have been in the past.
All round raised beds are an asset to any garden, small or large. They provide better access for the gardener and provide better conditions for the plants.
Creating raised beds from well treated landscape timbers or wooden sleepers is a common and straightforward process and in recent times has been the most popular way to produce a bespoke raised bed.
These are a real bonus to the gardener and have a few advantages that haven't even been mentioned yet, one is that you can put a raised bed pretty much anywhere you have space in your garden, so if you've got a lot of paving, or patio area which you want to convert easily into growing areas, you can put your raised bed on them easily, without having to do lots of excavations. Also so long as there is sufficient space around the raised bed they make gardening from a wheelchair much easier.
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