Permanent Intensive Beds

Why grow with permanent intensive beds?
from Paul at livingonthelandweb@gmail.com

There are places where food gardening can be done by tilling up a whole area and planting in single rows, and often requiring too much watering and weeding, and cost. But times like these need more efficient and sustainable - and often more inexpensive - use of space and inputs. And for the current growth of home, market, and community gardening to be sustained, the methods need to be both doable and rewarding. Too often they aren't.  Some useful sources listed at the end of this article.

Efficiency

Not just trendy, permanent beds and aisles can make more efficient use of available space and inputs for growing. Beds can be intensively planted and allow the garden to produce much more vegetables by NOT leaving 18" aisles for tractor wheels between single rows. No tractors here. In intensive beds plants are spaced equally in each direction, depending on the room they need when mature. Do the math for carrots with recommended spacing between plants and the same spacing between rows - say, for a simple 3'x20' bed. Eight rows in a three foot wide bed? How many carrots total? Unsustainable industrial farming methods are also inefficient and impractical for home, market and community vegetable gardens.

Soil compaction

Beds are usually 3-4 feet wide to reach the middle from either side, and aren't walked on and compacted. Aisle width may vary as needed. Soil that is not compacted by feet or wheels allows better root growth and better plant growth. As such it needs little or no annual tilling or digging. It's easier to work in amendments. Uncompacted beds percolate irrigation more deeply, hold moisture better, and drain excess water more easily. Compacted soil is harder to water deeply and is more prone to waterlogging when it is watered deeply or gets too much rain. Either condition is hard on plants.

Inputs

Beds require less amendments, mulch, tilling, and irrigation than the entire garden because aisles need none of these. All inputs are concentrated on the growing soil in beds. This saves labor and money. Plus, the cost of a tiller can easily outweigh any savings from growing your own. Initial bed layout and digging in organic amendments can avoid buying a tiller altogether - and regular tilling brings weed seeds to the surface to sprout. With free or cheap local materials for amendments and mulch, startup costs can be limited more or less to simple hand tools.

Mulched beds

Organic mulch allows water to penetrate while reducing surface evaporation, conserving moisture, and greatly reducing weeding. In a wet climate beds may need to be slightly higher than aisles for better drainage. Mulch protects shallow roots from the sun's heat and moderates soil temperature which helps growth - and food production. It helps to keep the soil surface from being compacted and crusted by rain on bare soil. Water percolates down more easily. So besides saving water by not irrigating aisles area, less water also is needed for the bed soil. Winter mulch can protect soil from hard freezes in milder climates, and as Ruth Stout explained long ago you just pull the mulch aside in spring to let the sun warm the soil and plant. For transplants mulch can be pulled aside and replaced around plants. Coarser mulch material needs to be a little thicker layer than finer material. Bare soil is subject to erosion loss by wind and water, and is rarely best for growing. In field and forest nature works to remedy bare soil.

Amendments

With permanent beds, the labor and expense of amendments aren't wasted on aisles that get walked on. Organic amendments may vary including compost, green manure crops, animal manures, bone meal, and minerals. In composting, greens and browns ideally are combined in a ratio of more or less 1:20 for nitrogen in green matter to decompose browns such as aged manure. But the same materials may be worked into the soil directly, skipping the compost pile. Proper amendments also go beyond providing plant nutrients, by loosening soil structure for good root growth and moisture retention, and by providing raw materials for earthworms and microorganisms such as mycorrhizae that improve soil structure and healthy plant growth. Raising the level of organic matter becomes more practical and affordable when only the growing beds are amended.

Adaptations

Beds may need raising and framing under certain conditions such as sloping or uneven ground, thin, rocky, or hopeless topsoil, or too much rain. Where conditions permit beds can simply be laid out flat and marked with permanent stakes or other markers. Lumber or other materials may be used to define edges and keep bed soil or mulch in place if needed. Where space permits green manure crops such as legumes that add nitrogen and bring up subsoil minerals can be rotated with growing beds. Local conditions and resources often influence choices in growing, and have since the dawn of agriculture. In parts of New England rocks removed to clear garden space can be used to outline beds and hold warmth. There are endess variations and workarounds on ideas that work.
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Sources

Some of many sources on intensive beds and organic growing, available at low cost from http://www.bookfinder.com which includes many booksellers . I'm not an expert and we don't need to be experts if we combine what works best from those who are.

High-Yield Gardening: How to Get More from Your Garden Space and More from Your Gardening Season, Rodale Press

How to Grow More Vegetables Than You Ever Thought Possible on Less Land Than You Can Imagine, by John Jeavons (& others by Jeavons)

Rodale's Ultimate Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening. The Indispensable Green Resource for Every Gardener, Rodale Press

Getting the Most from Your Garden, Rodale Press

The Complete Book Of Composting, Rodale Press