Above Ground Garden

Hi All, I live in Maine in an area heavy with clay. I'd like to start a small above ground garden but need info about how to go about it. Can anyone recommend good websites, a good book or any helpful info in general? Thanks. -Paul

Try this link:

Paul,

I live in the south, and all I have here is clay. I currently do all of my vegetable gardening in raised beds. Here is what I did.

1. I built the boxes for the beds out of regular 2x10 lumber and made them 4 feet wide and 8 feet long.

2. I placed the box in the area I wanted it and marked the inside area.

3. I removed the box and dug down 6 to 8 inches, removing all the soil.

4. Once I had all the soil removed I made sure I had all the grass out of it and started adding compost, manure, shreaded leaves, and the original soil back. I placed the box frame back over the hole and kept filling with this mixture until I had reached the top of the frame.

This may seem like a lot of work, and it is, but I have not been sorry I did this. I can now grow just about anything in my raised beds.

I hope this helped.

Jim Shearon www.GardenerTalk.com

You can do it using just about anything for containing the soil. Wood, bricks, blocks,railroad ties, rocks, whatever. Use a good potting soil and work in plenty of additional peat moss. This will help to retain moisture and reduce watering. Above ground beds dry out faster than in ground beds. Each fall multch up some leaves and work them into the soil. They will compost over the rest of the fall and winter/spring. Add compost whenever you can and in a few short years the soil will be better than any ground based bed. When you start buliding the basic layout put newspaper on the bottom first and then add your soil. This will help kill any grass and weeds. Above ground gardening is MUCH easier than normal gardening and you'll LOVE IT! Just go for it!

Thanks everyone. -Paul

Jim, I use very nearly the same method! Wowie!

My best price was on 1x4's so that is what I used with braces every 2'. I dug a trench 2' deep x 4' wide x 16' long and filled it with leaves warehoused behind the garage since last fall. I didn't layer them as I want them to take a long time decomposing. Same idea on the refilling but I also had some dirt from the paths (establishing a new, lower, grade for them to allow better drainage) so I am ending up with beds nearly 3' tall ... and a total of 5' to the first undisturbed soil. Probalby about 65% sand, 20% good looking loam, 5% clay, maybe 10% humus / organic material. (I tilled in well over 2' of leaves last fall by applying about a 12' sheet and tilling that in then an additional 18' blanket of leaves to over-winter with for mid-winter thaw tilling ... worked great and caught a LOT of grubs napping ... eternally)