Raised garden width

[Allan Matthews]

How wide do you make your raised gardens? I have one that is four feet wide but am building another..consideering five feet....33% more space but I have doubts. Thanks for replies.

[shazzbat]

How long are your arms? Make the beds so that you can reach to the centre, assuming you have access from both sides.

Steve

[The Cook]

How far can you (or whoever else is working) comfortably reach to work? That should be the half way point.

[Allan Matthews]

I think I could reach in that far..might be a little difficult..actually my present one is 48 inches...three concrete blocks wide and the new one would be 5 feet inches..another block. Just wondered what others were doing.

[Len Brauer]

g'day allan,

around 1meter mate, that way you can reach in from both sides.

len

[LJ]

I have 4 ft and 4.5 ft and regret it. Wish I would have made them 3 ft as I'm finding it quite painful to plant in the center.

[Lorenzo L. Love]

Last fall I replaced my 44" wide beds that were framed with 2 x 12 lumber with 48" wide beds framed with 8" concrete blocks. So the outside width is now 64" vs. the old beds which were 48" outside width. The width of the framing material makes an enormous difference. I could reach easily with the old ones, but the new thicker walls puts the center out of reach. Kneeling on the blocks I can get to the middle, which was the plan, but that's killing my knees. Plan better then I did. Once you put several tons of soil down, you are not going to want to move it.

Lorenzo L. Love

you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.? Cicero

[simy1]

You can have 8 feet wide beds, under certain circumstances. If you plant pick-once veggies, like garlic, onion, beet, parsnip, and you already have your mulch, compost and driplines in place, you will never have to work on or around the plant again until harvest. And I do have certain beds which are 5 feet wide and which I try to use that way. But you have to plan. Some pick-once veggies actually need attention during the season, for example cabbage and its green worms. For pick-often veggies, like peas or tomatoes, 4 feet is best, if you have access from both sides. Access on one side, 2.5 feet, no more. Most of my beds have sides made with old sidings, so there is really no extra distance. The few beds made with cinder blocks, yes, the block thickness counts (or should count) in those 4 feet. You can always plant an extra chard or carrot in the blocks holes.

[DigitalVinyl]

simy makes a nice point. I planted an extra wide bed--relly just used up all the space. I planted onions in the center and while I expect to do litte with them, I do need to weed them, which is torublesome.

You really want to base it on comfortable reach. Weeding can be a regular occurence so you don't want gardenign to become a bothersome chore. DiGiTAL ViNYL (no email) Zone 6b/7, Westchester Co, NY,

[Dwayne]

I do something different. After getting my garden area plowed or roto-tilled I rake my loose dirt into rows about 12 inches high. If I don't have enough dirt, to get it that high, I use the tiller between the rows after raking it, and then rake it again. Then I start at one end of the row and "rake" the top of the row, length wise. This removes old dead weeds that may have gotten into my dirt, and it flattens the row top, making the row approx 8 or 9 inches high and 4 to 5 inches wide. Then I lay my soaker hose down the center on top of the row and plant along the soaker hose. I can usually make a row of onions, beets, carrots or radishes on each side of the soaker hose and doubling my crop in a small area. I make the raised rows far enough apart to till between them as the weeds come up, and long enough to use a 50 or 75 ft soaker hose, depending on the room I have. You can shorten or lengthen the soaker hoses to fit your rows with fittings from a hardware store.

Dwayne

[Nicole H]

[JonquilJan]

Depends on who is using it. Can you reach comfortably for 2 feet - 2 1/2 feet? Double that for your raised bed width.

I am older (66), disabled and overweight - mine are 3 feet wide.

JonquilJan

[Nicole H]

5 - 12 yr olds use it... there's walkways on both sides as there are over 20 plots this size

[peter]

[B.Server]

[Allan Matthews]

Yes, I meant in my original post that I considered four blocks (16" each) instead of three blocks wide.....I am impressed tho, by all the ideas that I have seen in the responses here.