The beds

Tongue & groove boards and lining.  Good wide edges to sit or perch on or rest tools and plants on - great if you have a bad back or other ailment

  

The site is quite small at 15m x 10m (about half the size of the average allotment?) and backs onto the garage with a wooden fence to the left.  Sitting across a diagonal of West - East it gets the full afternoon sun which is what I wanted as this would be warmer both earlier in the season and later.  There is a small lean-to greenhouse at the side in addition though.

The second bed up in one of Paul's wheelchair access beds which we adapted and had lowered - see below for details

We terraced what was a sloped area of grass using shutter boarding and infilling with a mixture of hoggin (Hoggin is a a mix of gravel, sand and clay that binds firmly when compacted, yet allows water to drain through it)
and sand covered by terram (black landscaping fabric for weed control) and then topped off with shingle for ease of maintenance.

Tip:  It's important to compact the hoggin using a small petrol driven compaction plate or manually using a roughneck tamper if you are feeling energetic.  Even if not working on a slope, alot of weight, once the beds are full, will go on the top and you don't want to have to deal with slippage or subsidence later on - what a disaster that would be! 

All of the photos above were taken August - September 2010

and those below, April 12-14th 2011

Since starting in August 2010 we've added a number of new beds, virtually each month and now have about 19 in all of all different sizes and depths.  The basic configuration is about 1.8m x 1.2m, the advice being don't go above 1.2m (4 feet) wide for ease of access from both sides.  The other advice is don't go over 1.8m (6 feet) long because you want to walk around from end to end and side to side easily and not be tempted to walk over the bed.

I kind of agree with this but we've added all sorts of lengths and widths and found the above holds true as a basic guide.  We prefer to have beds with a width in multiples of 45cms and lengths in multiples of 1.4m for one reason and one reason only - the best cloches in the world are 40cms wide and 1.4m long with the end pieces (more of these in a later post).

One or two beds are 3m long and I would agree this is on the limit even if they are great for runner beans, french beans and peas etc.

 

Yes, it's only April and the beans are out already - I'll watch the weather and cover up with fleece if we have a frost.

What is important is that these dimensions are the internal sizes, especially if you use wide capping as we have.

Depth wise we've gone for two options - either two planks high or three, these giving 36cms or 51cms depth respectively.  We'll rotate crops over the coming months and years but the shallower ones will be used for onions and gladiolus unless experience proves us wrong.  

Smaller raised bed with hoops supplied by Paul

The beds are open bottomed for drainage and all have a fabric lining.  About half have holes along the long side of the capping to take metal hoops for netting etc. although I've started to experiment with some frames, of which more later.

Raised bed with netting frame

We have a couple of beds on the patio and these are fitted with timber bottoms and raised on bearers for better drainage and to protect the patio below.


So, who made them?  One of the nicest blokes I have met and a very talented man - Paul Stokes at http://www.raised-gardenbeds.co.uk/.  Paul is happy to adapt, add and take away to meet his customer' needs and he's been great with me.  I've now had a variety of sizes and options and wouldn't hesitate in recommending him. 

Paul will make up and deliver completed for simple placing on site or make them flat pack for assembly on-site (they're quite heavy made up so flat pack is great for allotments etc if you've far to carry).  

Paul makes fabulous raised beds that take wheelchairs for those out there it may relate to.  I have one, albeit it lowered a little in height, and it's tremendously strong and therefore safe for a wheelchair user. 

In the next post I'll cover the soil we used to fill.