The discussion will focus on what are the high beds - the pros and cons, the advantages and disadvantages of this method of cultivation of garden crops in the Kuban. My name is Anna. I am one of those who moved to the Kuban. An avid gardener, land workaholic, just a hostess of 8.5 hectares of land that our family acquired in the Krasnodar Territory a few years ago( 2014).Actually, my experience is not great, but it is. I want to share it.
- Experience in creating and using high beds
- Pros of high beds
- Minuses of high beds
- Examples of using high beds in Kuban, photos
Experience in creating and using high beds
How to make the beds, what will I have? Living in the Kuban in the North-West of our country, I had high, warm beds. Naturally, here I wanted to do just such, since for myself I immediately highlight a lot of advantages.
содерж to content ↑Pros of high beds
- It is very convenient for me to take care of them with my not very healthy back. To such beds I always have a small portable bench. It helps to care for them.
- When watering, the water does not spread, remaining inside the box, the shoes remain clean.
- The paths between the beds are clean.
- Convenient mulching.
- Weeds are few, the plants do not compete with them, spending all their efforts only on fruiting.
- Harvest from raised beds far exceeds normal. You can start growing greens, for example, as soon as the snow melts.
- High beds do not require digging, it is enough to add a little compost or humus in the spring, to gouge, for example, with forks.
- Beautiful and well maintained. This is also a plus - where do without it?
In general, having moved to the Krasnodar Territory, I could not even think that vegetables and greens are grown somehow differently. Even began to draw a plan for the location of the beds. Suddenly, on one of the forums( and I love online chatting), roughly speaking, they twisted my finger at my temple, saying that they don’t do this. They called several reasons, but one, the most important one: everything burns in such beds.
Hmm. .. Thoughtful. Began to study the question. Indeed, the local people plant all the crops next to each other, simply plowing a few hundred square meters, sometimes even without dividing the beds by paths. Well. .. Perhaps they are right. So, from the boxes still give up. We dig up a piece of land, plant vegetables, greens as all the indigenous people of Kuban plant.
But there it was. .. And what about beauty? !What beauty, if everything is planted in a row? Nah, I don't want that. I want it to be beautiful, comfortable, clean. Well, how is it so easy to put seeds in the ground, seedlings, without dividing the land at least by a path? And then how between them to walk, how to water? Everything will spread in different directions. In general, my fantasy has no limits - my husband and I have built such beds:
I called them "knolls".I then, seeing this beauty, could not rejoice. What are we great! Everything is clear, beautiful, comfortable!
It's time to sow, plant seedlings. Everything seems to be nice, the main thing is beautiful! But. .. watering was terribly uncomfortable! First, the water flows from the mounds - dirt is on the tracks, and secondly, the earth is crumbling( because of watering or just like that), third, the hose must be constantly corrected so as not to break the edges of the beds.
And so everything is fine, nothing is burning, everything is growing fine, my back says thanks to me, there are no weeds - apparently, they lost under a layer of earth, they died. But throughout the season, such improvised mounds lose their shape, you have to maintain it all the time.
You must still box! It will be more convenient with them! Well, I do not want to have just arable land, my garden should not be like that.
For the year of torment with my invented high ridges, hills, I learned that there are still people who make beds in boxes in the Kuban. Having watched from the side, having studied the positive moments, I threw away all doubts and ordered the boards. Why precisely boards, and not other material? After all, the box can be made of metal, slate( including used), brick, concrete, and many other materials, the pros and cons of which I have carefully studied.
Outcome - wooden boards for high beds came to me more in some respects. First, the tree is an environmentally friendly material, breathable, durable enough. Secondly, all elements of the box can be easily attached with screws, brackets or nails. Thirdly, you can sit on the edge of the box. It does not hurt, as if to sit on a narrow metal profile. Not as cold as if on concrete. Well, again about beauty. Yes it's beautiful! The tree fits perfectly into the overall natural garden landscape.
The boards were chosen 2 cm thick, 20 cm wide. We decided not to do the above beds - all of a sudden the truth would all burn.
The husband built me a box measuring 5 m × 80 cm. He fastened the boards with self-tapping screws. They covered the box with a simple stain, although it could be covered with something more substantial, for example, with varnish or a septic tank. But I decided not to spend too much, they would stand for 8-10 years( I knew this from previous years in the humid North-Western climate), and then you can again make new ones.
These are the boxes for the beds. In the photo of the boxes is already covered with stain.
At the site I decided to arrange them in such a way that a 2-wheelbarrow could easily pass between them, so that I could freely fit together with my bench. The distance between the beds is approximately equal to the width of the bed itself - just under one meter.
Having put the box on the ground( please note that before this the land was not processed at all, we simply mowed the grass, put the box on top), we hammered in pieces of reinforcement from two( long) sides of the beds so that the boards were fixed, not curved from the earth's gravity. The bottom was covered with cardboard - this is an additional protection from weeds, which remained under the cardboard. Filled up to half the height of the earth, then - a layer of compost, which I collected a whole year, and on top - again the ground.
Please note that the area where the box should be placed should be smooth! We were lucky - it was not necessary to level the surface.
For high beds, where shelter would be necessary, we built arcs from metal-plastic plumbing pipes( it came out very budget-bought a 50-meter coil in one well-known construction hypermarket).The pipes are very easy to bend. To fasten them, pieces of reinforcement( smaller diameter than the pipe itself) were driven into the ground and they simply put these flexible pipes on the reinforcement. And here they are, my pretty. Ready, waiting for the first sowing!
This season almost everything I wanted to plant grew in my new beds. Only a part of the onions and beets settled down just on the ground, made it for the experiment and made sure that you should not bother with checking any more - which beds are more convenient and practical. Everything - only in the box, only in high beds!
Cons of growing a vegetable garden without high beds( my opinion):
- When watering, water spreads everywhere.
- Kuban land is dense, tends to crack when the heat comes after the rains. There was even such - my beets fell deep under the ground into such a crack.
- Shoes get dirty with watering.
- The back hurts when taking care of plantings( weeding, loosening, etc.).
- Difficult to pull the roots out of the ground, the ground is not as loose as inside the boxes.
- Weeds climb like on the side of planting, so they simply sprout from old stock of seeds.
- The mulch disappears somewhere, and inside the boxes lies where it was put.
- Annual digging required.
Still, high beds are the best way to grow vegetables and greens( for me personally).Nothing like the burning of crops did not happen, watering was no more than the beds located just on the ground.
I irrigated the main crops in the beds-boxes every other day, cucumbers every day, tomatoes 1 time in 1.5-2 weeks. In the same way, she watered the usual beds.
The soil of high beds has always been loose, fluffy, although I did not mulch everything. There were almost no weeds, but the worms fell in love with my beds, often met them, and in the autumn, when they freed them from the tops, I discovered them even more. Workaholic! Apparently, they drew compost.
What else I want to mention. Raised beds for the cultivation of tomatoes, cucumbers - this is very convenient, but you must provide supports or trellis for the garter of lash cucumbers, tall varieties of tomatoes.
I planted only undersized bush varieties, since the trellis had not yet been prepared, but next season my tomatoes and cucumbers will be in a separate place, always in boxes and on the trellis, which have already been prepared. Perhaps I will share my experience with you at the end of the 2017 season.
↑ to content ↑Minuses of high beds
Probably for someone it will be a minus material expenses for the manufacture of such beds on your site. But I will say this: do not regret - and you will not regret! It will pay off all the harvest, low labor costs.
The downside may be the fact that such beds are difficult to reschedule, transfer, it is difficult physically. But many gardeners make a garden-garden plan for many years, therefore, I believe that this minus will become a plus over time. Having once worked, you will get greater convenience, a beautiful layout, which you will admire for many years.
Of the minuses, probably, everything. Nothing else comes to mind. Some advantages!
Here, admire - my high beds! By the way, pay attention to the pieces of reinforcement sharpening from the earth at the side walls of the boxes. That is how we strengthened them so that the earth could not deform the box.
Carrots and Onions:
Eggplants:
Tomatoes:
But my favorite vegetable garden is our breadwinner and handsome man:
Author: Anna Pasechnik. Photo by the author.
содерж to content ↑Examples of using high beds in Kuban, photos
Cucumbers and tomatoes in high beds, photos by Olga Dorokhova( Krasnodar Territory) 
Strawberries in a raised bed, photos by Olesya Polyakova from Novokubansk, Krasnodar Territory in a templatePolovnikova of Art. Pavlovskaya, Krasnodar Territory 
Raspberries in a high bed of slate, photo by Elena Polovnikova of Art. Pavlovsk, Krasnodar Territory 
The beds of Lyudmida Dombrovskaya from Art. 
, Varenikovskaya Krasnodar Territory xx beds of xx from Kurganinsk, Krasnodar Region 
