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Gardening Tips

Articles

An easy way to make a new bed

Details: Category: General gardening tips; Published on Tuesday, 10 March 2009 15:59; Written by Graham; Hits: 313

Eight years ago when we inherited the garden it had the typically French "look" with a random selection of small trees dotted around a large "field" of meadow grass. Every year I have added flower and shrub beds (in the typical "English" style) - currently there are 18 with another in preparation. I have tried several methods of making new beds, most of which involve lots of digging, but now I have a very easy way of doing it. Our garden soil is best described as "shallow chalk". In most places the topsoil is only 10 - 20 cm deep then you hit limestone bedrock. It's a wonder plants can survive in such soil but most do well, and I am regularly adding trailer-loads of compost from the compost factory to improve the quality of the soil. With such conditions, I find the easiest way to create a bed is as follows:

Mark-out the perimeter of the bed with strings, canes or a hosepipe for a curvy shape. Remember not to make the curves too tight since this doesn't look good and is more difficult to mow around. I use canes to define the shape since I found that rabbits bite through stretched strings. Remember too to leave sufficient space between beds to be able to pass through with the mower. I'd recommend leaving the marked-out beds a few days to ensure that you are really happy with the shape and location, which is easier to visualize with the beds marked out.
Kill off the grass and weeds with "glyphosate", sprayed on a calm day within the marked-out area. It's worthwhile making up the dilution recommended for difficult weeds on the pack, since you really want to clean the area as much as possible.
Wait for three to four weeks for the vegetation to die off - it should turn brown.
Now mark-out the perimeter accurately using string and pegs. Using the lines as guide, cut two parallel lines - one along the string and the other about 1 ^1/2to 2 spades' distance - cutting right down to the bedrock.
Again using the spade cut "horizontals" down to the bedrock to give roughly square shaped sections.
Get the spade under each cut "cube" of soil at the level of the bedrock, then lift and turn. The idea is to use these blocks to build a low wall around the perimeter of the bed. If you've made all the cuts at a slight angle from the vetical, which is the natural way of cutting, you'll find that these block lock together in a very stable way.
Fill the interior with topsoil, compost or even better a mixture of the two, up the the height of the wall.

I have created most of our beds this way, though it will only work well if your conditions are similar to ours. The method is both quick and easy and has a few benefits over the traditional digging method:

The "moat" created around the bed is easy to maintain weed-free since nothing much will grow on the exposed rock.
The depth of soil in the bed is increased.
Any latent weed seeds are not brought to the surface with digging, thus will mostly not germinate.

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