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by Michael Weishan
Until this spring, my vegetable garden had consisted of six rectangular
raised beds made of pine boards measuring 50 x 4, with gravel
pathways in between. The inspiration for this design was the gardens
I had seen at Plimoth Plantation here in Massachusetts and at
other early pioneer sites, which seemed like apt models for my
simple 1852 farm house.
Although I was aware that pine boards were not durable, I chose
them when I first installed the gardens five years ago because
they had the advantage of being inexpensive, non-toxic, and reasonably
easy to install. The decision to use raised beds was a quick fix
solution to a difficult problem: While the garden's chosen site
was perfect in terms of sunlight-almost uninterrupted light from
dawn to dusk-the ground at that location was unworkable. The soil
was full of stones and stumps and rather boggy in the early spring.
Given time, a lot of energy and a fairly generous budget, these
soil problems could have been overcome, but as I lacked all three
at the time, I opted for the raised bed method as the simplest
and most expedient solution.
By the end of the second season, I had discovered what the first
colonists had probably also found: namely, that the raised bed
method required a great deal of extra work, at least on the large
scale I was attempting. Although there were distinct benefits
to raised beds in terms of providing better drainage and having
the soil warm early in spring, the simple pine boards were a maintenance
nightmare. First of all, the boards seemed to have a mind of their
own. Although they had been anchored every few feet, before long
they began to buckle and bend in every direction, further complicating
weeding and maintenance chores. The gravel pathways in between
inevitably became covered with soil spilled over from the beds
and sprouted weeds. At times, it seemed like the paths needed
more weeding than the beds themselves!
After putting up with this ever-worsening situation for several
years, I finally decided I'd had enough. The area was getting
downright ugly, and quite frankly, it was depressing to work in
it. When the snow melted last spring, I found that several of
the beds had collapsed completely, and the rest required major
repair. Rather than sink more time and energy into a losing venture,
I determined that the time had come for a complete overhaul.
Although I could have redesigned the site completely, the layout
of the old garden had functioned fairly well, and I rather liked
the traditional geometric design. More important, two of the old
beds held asparagus plants that had taken three years to mature
and couldn't be moved without back-breaking effort. Given my love
of asparagus, I wasn't about to sacrifice those beds-although
I was only partially successful in this goal. Since the main problem
was really the collapsing beds and the difficulty of maintaining
the pathways, I decided to import large quantities of soil to
fill in the pathways between the beds and re-grade the entire
area to improve the soil depth and drainage. This required moving
some existing plantings such as the raspberries and strawberries,
but given the earliness of the season, this really wasn't a problem.
The new beds would be edged with 4 x 4 pressure-treated timbers
(which have the advantage that they don't rot) sunk 3/4 into the
ground. I specifically requested timbers that had been aged for
a year or more outside because I'd read that any potential leaching
of harmful chemicals occurs during this time. Whether pressure-treated
wood is actually even harmful, or whether the aging treatments
work, is a subject of hot debate. Of course, one way to avoid
the whole issue would have been to use cedar, which is five times
as costly. If you frequently amend your soil, as I do, any potential
risk from the pressure-treated wood is substantially mitigated.
Brick or stone would have been another, albeit more expensive,
alternative, and given the rather informal, farm-like feel of
the rest of the property, probably not appropriate. The new pathways
would be made of turf, which instead of requiring laborious weeding,
could be easily and quickly mown. As a final note, the entire
garden was to be surrounded with white horse fencing, to protect
the precious contents from my equine friends, Claudius and Remus,
and with an arbor for growing vines and grapes.
Although I was forced by the sudden collapse of the bed supports
to do this project in the springtime, late fall would have been
an equally good or even better time, as substantial quantities
of half-rotted manure and compost could have been added to the
commercial soil we purchased and left to amend the soil over the
course of the winter.
The entire renovation took approximately three weeks from beginning
to end. The cost of the project was approximately $8,000 -$3,000
of it in soil alone, $1,000 in timber and the rest in labor. Bear
in mind that the cost for such a project will vary considerably
depending on the quantities of material you require. In my case,
given the irregular grading of the plot, I required greater than
normal amounts of soil. The photographs shown here tell the story
of the garden's reconstruction.
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Figure 1: The old garden on its day of deliverance. As
you can see, it was a mess. Here, the strawberries and raspberries
await transplanting, while the beds on the far right have
already had their wooden supports removed by contractor
Mark Carbone and his crew.
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Figure 2: The old garden beds with their boards removed.
Despite the fact that the gravel was underlaid with a special
landscape fabric to keep the weeds from growing through
soil always managed to spill out of the beds in sufficient
quantities to allow weeds to root on top of the fabric!
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Figure 3: Removing the boards from six 50-foot-long beds
produced a remarkable quantity of surplus wood. Some of
it had rotted while in the ground, but three-quarters of
it was still in fairly good condition-good enough to be
recycled into the horse fence that eventually surrounded
the garden!
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 Figure
4: Moving a large quantity of soil generally requires heavy
equipment. Here, one of the bobcats we often use dumps a
load of soil. Small, maneuverable, and remarkably easy to
run, bobcats are available from most tool rental companies
for a very reasonable cost and certainly make this type
of job much easier. The downside is that they have tendency
to compact any ground they roll over, and if you value your
garden, it's best to limit their activity to tightly controlled
areas. Despite my best efforts, the bobcat managed to crush
and utterly compact a section of one of the existing asparagus
beds, completely destroying the plants. All told, about
a quarter of the asparagus disappeared and will have to
be replanted. Though highly regrettable, in the end this
is a much smaller mortality rate than would have occurred
if we had tried to dig up the beds and move them so late
in the season.
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Figure 5: The huge mound of soil threatened to submerge
a newly-planted plum tree which, fortunately, managed to
escape the ordeal unharmed. Several more soil piles like
this were delivered - in all a total of over 80 cubic yards.
Here's where I learned my biggest lesson: Although I was
very careful to specify a compost mix (part soil and part
compost), the humus content of this and most other commercially-delivered
so-called loam is very poor. As a result, the garden has
not been as prolific this year as it might have been had
larger quantities of compost and manure been added to the
mix and left over the winter. This fall, after the garden
has been harvested, we will be top-dressing the beds with
2-3 inches of fresh horse manure, which will then be tilled
in early next spring.
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 Figure
6: The bobcat has delivered about half of the soil, and
the initial grading has begun. Because of the odd slope
of the site, and the fact that I wanted a level garden surface
for the new garden, I decided to use the higher, leftmost
side of the garden as the new base grade. This required
filling the entire area with large amounts of soil, as we
proceeded across the garden from left to right. While the
soil level on the left-hand side was barely raised (except
to fill in the old pathways), portions of the right-hand
side of the garden required more than a foot of new soil.
This resulted in a rather steep and sudden grade where the
garden ended on the right side. Ultimately, we will add
additional fill to level off the slope at the garden's pond-facing
edge, and probably fill it with a cutting flower bed. To
see how much the grade was altered, notice the edge of the
old beds in the lower left hand corner of this picture,
and the same areas in the next pictures.
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Figure 7: Most of the soil is now in place, and the men
are working on grading the plot and laying out future beds.
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Figure 8: The process of laying the timber edging continues.
Once in place, the timbers were buried and affixed to the
ground with two foot stakes every several feet. Only about
half an inch or so of timber was left above the soil, to
provide an edging for the bed while still allowing easy
access with a mower.
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Figure 9: Work on laying the timber edging commences. The
beds and paths were first laid out by using a running measurement
along the two ends and then marking the parameters with
string. All the corners were checked to make sure they were
square. Because we had been delayed by almost a week of
rain, the window for transplant-ing our raspberries and
strawberries was closing fast.
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Figure 10: Here horticulturist Curt Smith is transplanting
the strawberries to their new home even before the edging
has been completed.
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Figure 11: The sod arrives, at last, and the walkways start
to take shape. I chose sod rather than seed because of the
lateness of the season. It was soon time to start working
in the beds, and I needed to be able to get into the garden
without disturbing newly-seeded pathways. Laying this much
sod is a lot of work, as each roll weighs about 40 pounds
(more if wet). Several hundred rolls were required to fill
all the grass areas.
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 Figure
12: The garden as it looked in August 1998. One of the nice
things about working in my own yard, as opposed to my clients',
is that I have the luxury to experiment and change my mind.
After the beds were installed, I was so pleased with the
results that I decided I wanted to expand the available
bed area next year to allow room for more vegetables and
cutting annuals. Therefore, when I ran the horse fence I
extended it to encompass additional space for two more beds
at the front of the garden. The fence is of the simplest
design - a very old-fashioned style common on farms and
other places where large animals share the land. It consists
of pressure-treated posts and 1 x 8 spruce boards 16 long.
The fence line at the rear of the garden is temporary. At
the moment it closes off a composting area, but next year
I will be installing a grape arbor and an area where I can
sit and appreciate the fruits of all these labors.
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