This is how I’ve been building my new Raised Bed Kitchen Garden.
The plan is to build 25 Raised Garden Beds. I’m deep digging them, filling with gras clippings and other organic material to create a good soil and a No Dig Garden.
See more about the Garden Layout, and Crop Rotation Plan for the new Kitchen Garden in this post: New Garden Layout Plan
This is the area where I decided to place my New Garden:
First thing – trying out the layout on the ground by placing the Raised Bed Garden Frames on the Lawn:
I was happy with the way it looked and the distance between the beds (80 cm). It will give me plenty of room to walk and work between the Raised Beds.
Next step – to dig. We decided to get some mechanical help..
The garden looked brutal at this stage:
Digging for the Raised Beds
I’m digging Deep Beds. I dig approximately 30 cm into the ground, fill the hole with organic material, add Frames/Raised Beds on top of that and fill with soil. I add about 30 cm of Soil in the Frames above ground level. This means that the Vegetables get a nice layer of 60 cm of great soil to grow in. Their roots will stretch downwards instead of sideways and allow me to grow more Vegetables in the same area since I can plant them closer to each other.
So.. starting with digging:
Then placing the Raised Bed Garden Frames on top of the hole.
If you want to see how I build the Frames for the Raised beds, check out this post: How to build Raised Bed Frames for Deep Beds
After placing each bed I lined it with Plastic, trying to protect the Frame a bit from the moist soil.
Now fill with organic material. I mostly used Grass Clippings, but also fallen Apples and leaves in other beds:
Next step is to cover the organic material with more soil. Since I was digging so many Beds, I simply started to deep dig the area for the next Bed, and used the soil that I dug up to fill the previous Bed.
And so it continued for some days:
Dig – Place the Frame – Fill with organic material – Cover with Soil… Repeat!
But the Garden slowly took shape:
Allt the beds are finally in the right place:
Installing Micro Drip automatic watering
Next step was to start placing the self watering micro drip system through all of the Raised Beds. I decided to do a third frame for all of the Raised Beds to hide the watering system, and to keep it in place.
So.. I kind of knew how to make loads of Frames.. And started painting again:
After the Frames were painted and put together, I marked the places where I wanted to cut the openings for the micro drip pipe, and drilled the corners before I made cuts with a Jigsaw tool.
Then I painted the openings before I put the frames into place.
Look at this Garden mess!
This is what it looked like when I put the drip pipe in place and put the Frame on top of it:
Slowly and Frame by Frame…
All the Frames are done!
I was very happy at this stage, but decided to clean it up a bit and put Stones around the edges of my new Kitchen Garden. Ongoing work:
I will use Groundcover Bark in the aisles between the Raised Beds. So.. a bit of shoveling left to do still. But I don’t mind at all! I’m so happy about this extended Garden and I’ve already started to use two of the Beds for late autumn crops.
Autumn update
Time to sit back and relax – the new Kitchen Garden is done! I’m still working on a plan for modular Cold Frames or Small Polytunnels to place on top of the Beds.. but I plan to work that out during the Winter.
