materials for raised beds

[ladbrokes]

in need of some advice.

im thinking of making edged raised beds with decking boards. ive found a cheap source but im worried that the material will be of poor quality. it measures 84mmx19mm. my beds will be 16ft long by 4ft wide.

what are your recommendations on the thickness of decking boards for my purposes

thanks

[vegypete]

hi ya i am new to this no dig method my self, on our allotment site you see all sorts of things people use for raised beds, decking boards, plastic facia boards, scaffold boards, railway sleepers, concrete fence posts ect ect, some look tidy, but at the end of the day no boards is best as what ever you use will atract slugs and snails …………pete

[charles]

 Pete is right unfortunately but if you want boards, it is possible to use decking wood, except it is treated with goodness knows what as preservative. Beds with wooden sides look nice and are clearly defined and good for many veg but I was dismayed this year by the difference in celeriac between those in the wooden-sided beds of my experiment, which were full of slug holes and woodlice, and those planted at the same time in an unsided bed which had hardly any damage. But many other veg did well in the experimental beds.

[Pete Budd]

I wholeheartedly agree that raised beds with timber sides, create problems. Weeds seem to get established along and under them, and they provide refuges for slugs. My experience has shown me that any interface between path and growing area seems to create problems which are much underestimated by the majority of gardeners. The worse situation is where the boundary is grass because it needs regular maintenance,(which it never seems to get), provides hiding places for slugs and encroaches onto the growing area. It may not be a textbook idyllic garden but I have settled for 8ft beds with bare paths.
However; I now have one plot which is planned to be mainly fruit, I also have a quantity of old decking boards. I have grassed half of it, so that I can mow between apple trees and upto a linear row of raspberries, (these sucker for fun in my sandy soil). The other half is planted with blackberries, loganberries, strawberries, rhubarb etc and is going to be edged with boards which will be above the level of the surrounding grass. The aim will be to regularly mow upto the boards to prevent encroachment. Well thats the plan

Cheers Pete

[bluebell]

I have inherited some beds with wood edging and would add to all of the above very valid comments about slugs and weeds that on my fairly light soil they dry out far faster than the unedged beds.
I have made my unedged beds much deeper (about 6 inches) than Charles recomends and they still did not suffer from drying out as much as the wooden edged ones. Also to keep grass at bay I have put a deep edging around all of my beds that does require maintaining but having a clearly definde line it tends to get weeded with all of the rest of it and it is obvious when grass starts to encroach.

[Ros]

As we are called a demonstration allotment we have some beds edged and some not to show the difference – the ones which are edged are edged with old decking which I saved from going on a bonfire one November. There hasn’t yet [1 year only] been a noticeable difference between the beds on slug incidence and you would have thought that last year would show this up. The soil is very sandy. The worst thing about the edging is trying to mow round it and up to it with a rotary mower – we usually have to follow on with a strimmer. The petrol rotary mower is such a pain for this job we have just persuaded the committee to allow us to buy a decent push mower as it must surely be easier and certainly quieter. Actually just thought – you all might be able to help with some recommendations [or otherwise] for a decent push mower – your comments would be much appreciated. Thanks

[Pete Budd]

Hi Ros, I have a 16in Hayter petrol rotary that gets pretty close and I can`t see a push mower being that much different although I agree about the noise thing. I`m going to rely on getting the edging boards firmly and accurately positioned, with the supports on the inside. Obviously regular mowing will make a difference. I just want to minimise the tedious work of keeping the edges tidy.

Pete

[Pete Budd]

Hi there, I think your `cheap` timber will be a bit insubstantial especially as it is only 84mm wide.

Pete

[ladbrokes]

now im in a quandary as to keep my beds as they are or to edge them at all. my main aim for edging was to tidy up my plot and make semi permanent paths thus making the whole plot relatively low maintenance. if this encourages even more slugs and snails to thrive then im thinking i should leave well alone. this year ive had bumper crops of most veg.

for those who have edged beds in hindsight would you have bothered ?

[diggernotdreamer]

I have used both boarded and non boarded beds. I prefer to use boards as it does keep the soil in place. The boards I use are gravel boards (used for fencing) 6″ x 1″ and they usually come in about 10 foot plus lengths. They are treated, these days you are not allowed to use any arsenic and that has been the case for a few years now, you can always check with your wood merchant what they use,but it should be Tanalith E, which is based on copper. I hate grass paths, time spent mowing and edging up is a bit of my life gone I can never get back,if you don’t keep on top of it and the grass grows into your bed, slugs will use that to travel on, so I use landscape fabric on the paths, which if you put underneath the edges of the wood stop a lot of weeds growing up, I put good quality woodchips on my paths which last a good few years and then of course they are useful mulch when they break down. On my allotment I used thick cardboard for the paths and covered with straw which was cheap and available and again once broken down, is great mulch and of course in wet weather, you can still access your plot from your unmuddy paths. My observations over 20 years of gardening on beds is that yes, if you have paths covered and wooden planks you can make hidey holes for slugs – but also this is ideal habitat for rove beetles as well, If I ever pull up the path material and look underneath, there is a wealth of rove beetles running for cover, also if I am not mowing and weeding paths, I have a bit more time to spend hand picking off caterpillars and slug hunting.

[charles]

 Thanks for this, based on long experience which works, a good balance to my advice on unsided beds. Your beetles sound helpful, do you think they like living under permanent cover, rather than composted soil? And do you grow celeriac without holes?

[diggernotdreamer]

I think the beetles love living under cover, in the tunnels where I use newspaper covering with mowings as mulch, if you lift that there are loads of black beetles of all descriptions under there. The paths are kind of composted as they were just grass that I mowed short and then covered with the fabric and I guess the bed material moves around. I garden on a steep slope so there is always movement of organic material . I also have quite a lot of NZ flatworms and I have found that where there are flatworm eggs there are beetles which I think are waiting for the moment they hatch out and they can get a lovely succulent meal of baby flatworms.

I don’t grow celeriac, in fact I hate anything that tastes of celery,

[gj]

I have a number of beds with these recycled plastic boards. I have not found much difference with them drying out in comparison to non edged and there has been no difference with slug damage this year. However ants love them . They live in the gaps between the twin wall construction. Seems that they like to be dry and warm.

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