The Challenge Garden, Part I - Raised Beds

In Southeast Idaho, our growing season is very short. In some years, it's cold and raining (and even snowing) into June. It's not unusual for the temperature to vary as much as 40 degrees in a 24-hour period. Much of the time, summer weather ends before the school year begins in September. While cooler summers are more comfortable for people, most plants need a longer, warmer growing season.


Weather conditions such as these present challenges to the Idaho gardener. How early can I plant? How soon can I harvest? How much time and energy will I spend safe-guarding against killing frosts?


The situation of my yard adds other challenges: the garden is located in a narrow strip between the house, which shades the garden in the morning and a hill, which rises sharply on the west side and shades the garden after 6 p.m. Add to that the fact that if I dig more than 2 inches down, I strike rocks, since my yard is merely an extension of the hillside, which is comprised mostly of loose stone.


These conditions are vastly different from the garden I had during the years I lived in Oklahoma. There, the frequent rains provided constant high humidity, and it only snowed twice each year for the 4-1/2 years I was there. Gardening was no challenge at all, unless it involved keeping the slugs off the plants. My solution there was the same solution I've used in Idaho: raised beds.

Raised beds can be made of pretty much anything: wheelbarrows, half-casks, wooden crates, recycled brick. Anything that holds soil and provides drainage will do. Raised beds reduce the number of weeds, and I can even pull a chair up to the bed and weed without bending over or sitting on the ground. The beds raise the plants up about 2 feet, which exposes them to more sunlight, earlier in the day. My raised beds are made from wood salvaged from the 100-year-old house's original fence, so many of the planks are certainly "well-weathered."

Because the raised beds are never walked on, the soil stays loose, and it's easy to work in composted material. This year I added straw from the chicken coop (see January's postings to read about our backyard chicken project), and well-aged material from a friend's horse barn. I felt a little like one of MacBeth's witches, using my shovel to stir the cauldron of fertilizer. "Double trouble, boil and bubble" frequently came to mind as I mixed peat moss, kitchen waste, and plain old dirt, along with chicken and horse poop, to make a tasty garden brew.


Pictures    [Click on images to enlarge them.]
Top: a leaky, old wheelbarrow makes a great raised bed for my salad greens. It also has the advantage of being easy to relocate.
Middle: This box is made from recycled fence planks and salvaged hinges. Pieces of salvaged rebar lend additional support.
Bottom: A 1/2 cask holds enough soil to make one tomato plant happy. I drilled a few holes in the bottom to provide drainage, but as the cask ages, water will seep through the slats, too.