Pole Vaulting Beans

My overall goal for most of my garden is to try to get one pound of produce per square foot of garden bed.  This isn’t a hard and set rule but more like a guideline – like the Pirates’ Code.  To get that poundage from my bean bed I like to use tall poles.

My Blue Lake beans (M.R.’s Select Stringless) were planted on May 24^th.  After a cool June, they’re finally ready to pole.  I seed them in 7 inch square centres – I run my row marker up the bed and across the (4 foot wide) bed using lines spaced 7 inches apart and plant a seed at each line intersection over the whole bed. That is 98 seeds in 34 square feet of bed.  The germination rate of 89% was surprisingly good for my homegrown older 2015 seed.

My poles are 30 years old, made of Western Red Cedar and were hand split from a scrounged piece of an ancient dead fall, found on a local riverbank’s high-water line.  Each pole tries to be one and a quarter inch square and 10 feet long.

I found that three rows of poles down a bed don’t work as well as two rows.  The centre row is too shaded, less productive, and harder to pick from the path. The holes in the soil for the poles are premade using the round tapered end of my prybar.  I place one pole for each four plants following the two outer rows of beans running next to the path. 

The plants stranded in the middle of the bed find their way to either side’s poles usually without any help, but I do a bit of initial supervising so that some poles won’t get lonely.

The equidistant spacing of plants over the whole bed spreads the nutritional and watering load evenly and the shading of the intensive planting really slows weed germination and growth.  The two rows of poles work well for sun exposure and picking.

The smooth (split not sawn) poles are a bit slippery for the beans and they had a tendency to slide down the pole once they got most of the way up so I drilled a hole in each pole at the midway point and slide a nail through the hole.  This stops any plants from sliding down the pole.

With my sandy soil the poles can be a bit loose in their soil holes so with a thin stick I push a thin wedge shaped stone down each side of each pole to firm them up.  This keeps the dreaded soil compaction to a minimum.


Four cross pieces are tied near the tops of the poles, one down each row of poles and the other two across the rows at the ends of the bed.  Each pole top is tied to the cross piece.  This keeps the poles unified to resist wind or other strains.

I understand 10 foot poles are a bit excessive, and I’ve used them for so many years waiting for the sharpened ends to rot away but they never have. Split cedar rots slower than sawn cedar when in contact with the soil because the grain isn't exposed.  So I’ve never shortened them. 

For years, to pick my highest beans, I stood on a five gallon pail parked on a rectangular stool set up on the path.  It was rather hairy and I only fell off twice (that I can remember). 

Now that I’m way too old for that, I’ve discovered a neat way to use my three-legged 6 foot orchard (telescope observing) ladder in my garden and still keep the ladder’s feet only on the paths.  Using a 1 X 4 inch board clamped to the third, single leg I extend that leg another 16 inches which can then reach across the bed to the path on the other side.  This is now how I pick my beans on 10 foot poles.

TOG had an ingenious way to pole his 100 foot rows of beans.  I used to have the fun chore of installing his poles, first driving metal stakes with spaced holes on the upper halves.  Then I’d screw eight foot 2 X 3’s onto the stakes and run a wire across the tops of the 2 X 3’s and along the bottom. 

TOG would then brace and stretch the wires taught, then I’d run sisal twine up and down between the wires in a zig zag.  That was done by tossing the twine roll over the top wire and catching it, then looping it under the lower wire, then tossing it up again, etc.  Removal of the vines and twine at the end of the season was easy; it was all pulled down and composted together.

Perhaps if I didn’t have my bean poles, I’d have tried to copy something like that.  If I didn’t have my aluminum scoping ladder I would make a short three or four step wooden one with an outrigger hinged to reach through the bed to the opposite path.

If all goes well, later this year we’ll have up to 34 lbs of excellent green beans in the freezer.

Happy Gardening.

On Training Tomatoes (and Kids)

Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.  Proverbs 22:6 (NKJV)

If only raising kids was as easy as training tomatoes.  Once you’ve got the hang of it, it’s easy but it still takes constant work and diligence.  If you don’t know how to do it the result can be a non-productive mess.  Each kid (or tomato variety) is a bit unique but you still follow the basic plan: love, care, nurture, structure, limits, guidance, support and even necessary clips and snips to lead in the right direction.

Tomatoes divide into two classifications: Determinate and Indeterminate.

The Determinates are the low growing, sprawling kind with multiple leaders.  These are the ‘Field’ tomatoes.  They work great, except not in this climate.  In the Fraser Valley we suffer from Late Blight.  I’ve seen it come as early as mid-July.  Any time the leaves get wet and stay that way for a day or two and temperatures are warm, the Late Blight moves in.  First it shows up as furry dark blotches on the stems and leaves and then discolours the fruit and the whole plant turns into a gray fuzzy mess.

The way to avoid the Blight is to grow tomatoes under some sort of rain cover / roof and never let the foliage get wet or damp.  (That’s the second key reason to grow them in a greenhouse -- the first reason is to extend the season and keep the heat lovers warm).  If you have to make a roof cover for them then why not add some sides as well?

Indeterminates are the class of tomatoes that are trained up a pole or piece of twine and reach for the sky.  These are the productive kinds I grow in my greenhouse.

For years I staked my tomatoes with 5 foot cedar stakes.  I cut plastic grocery bags into strips and used these strips to tie around the plants and lasso them to their stakes.  This sort of worked but the plants got very unruly (like unguided teenagers) and I believe productivity was reduced due to my allowing too many leaders up the stake and too many side shoots going everywhere.

TOG was the one in our family who started using tomato clips.  These are nice, plastic, hinged clips that grip a piece of twine with its hinge and encircle the tomato leader’s stem. 

 

The clip's two surrounding ends lock together with a click until unlocked at the end of the season and released.  When clipped just under a leaf node the twine supports the weight of the growing plant and fruit.  Clips are used about every 12 inches up each leader. The twine is anchored above from a cross wire or wooden strut in the greenhouse roof.  The clips are reusable for hopefully 3 years.

These clips were what really helped me realize the importance of having only 2 or maybe 3 leaders from each plant and all other side shoots are cut or broken off. Some of the cherry varieties hit the ceiling quickly and so I allow another leader to start from near the bottom to extend the season.  This leader often gets its own new twine to clip into.

Alternatives for these clips could be twine hanging down that had multiple loops tied every 6 inches in them and these would be used in conjunction with twine wrapped around the leaders and tied through the loops.  Another way would be to use a tall stake that had protruding heads of nails every 6 inches used as anchor supports for tying up leaders.  Ties sliding down a pole don’t work.  I find wire cages around the plants make the necessary pruning difficult and the support isn’t always where it is needed, plus the cages are too short for full productivity of that growing space.

The most important thing on training tomatoes is to remove all side shoots and have only 2 or maybe 3 leaders.  Each variety is slightly different but as a leader grows, each leaf node has a new tiny shoot growing in its crotch.  These are easily rubbed off if small or bent and snapped off if a bit bigger.

I tried to make a red line where the shoot should be removed.

 

Some side shoots are more involved in the main stem and I prefer to use a scissor to remove them rather than have them possibly tear and wounding part of the leader.  Often diverging shoots fork near a new flower cluster and the dominate shoot must be maintained as the continuing leader and the minor shoot removed. 

Once again look for the red line.

 

As my plants get taller, I must check the lower leaves for new shoots that have restarted at old crotches.  There is a debate between TOG and me that breaking the shoots off rather than using a scissor lowers the chance of new shoots starting at old crotches.

So, to get the most fruit from your plants, the takeaway from all this is:

1) Cover tomato plants from rain and don’t water any foliage.

2) Remove all side shoots allowing only 2 or maybe 3 leaders. 

3) Clip or tie each leader every foot to an anchored support. 

4) Love your kids but train them -- be firm as to where they’re allowed to grow to encourage them to develop Good Fruit.

²² But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.  Galatians 5: 22,23. (NIV)

 

Happy Training.

 

A Matter of Nitrogen

It looks like I’m still struggling with finding the optimum amount of nitrogen for my heavy feeders – mostly for my tomatoes.  I’ve been working with 5 to maybe 6 lbs of feed or seed meals per 100 square feet of bed.

I have a picture of my early 2017 tomatoes in my old, smaller greenhouse.  I noticed then that the leaves on the 3 foot high plants were rather smaller than usual. 

My production later in the summer was fine, I thought, but I don’t usually weigh my tomatoes so I couldn’t actually know how good the crop was.

These plants reminded me of my cousin’s plants in his greenhouse several years ago – they had very small leaves.  My son The Organic Grower (TOG) had leased a bit of my cousin’s back acreage and in partial payment he built him a nice greenhouse out of conduiting and such.  My cousin was on his own as to how to use the greenhouse, whether he would move it in a rotation or not, and it was a year or two later that I noticed that his tomatoes looked very spindly.

2018 was my year off (Sabbath Rest) and I planted mostly fall rye and / or red clover over the whole vegetable part of my garden.  2019 was an excellent year after having a good rest – the clover had fixed quite a lot of extra nitrogen and the tomatoes had a great crop.  But this year it looks like the tomatoes are maybe struggling a bit again.

I asked TOG what he applies for his greenhouse tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers.  He reported using 10 to 16 bs of Alfalfa Meal (a horse feed supplement from Otter Co-op) per 100 square feet.  He mentioned Soya Meal was obviously more potent and that he’d been using some excellent composted horse manure as well.

Up until now my mix has been 2.5 lbs of Alfalfa, 2.5 lbs of Soya plus 1 lb of Kelp Meal per 100 square feet.  And I had no composted manure to add this year.  Now it looks like it needs a bit more nitrogen, so I think I need to quickly top dress another 2 lbs of Alfalfa, try to scratch it into the surface if the roots aren’t too full, and see if I’m not too late to make a difference. Here’s a pound of Alfalfa meal for 50 square feet.

Alfalfa meal smells like I fine bale of hay but is always dusty stuff so a mask is recommended if one is sensitive.  It scuffled quite nicely into the top bit of soil, not yet too badly overrun with roots.

Next year I’ll update my amendments applications to more adequately meet the nitrogen needs of my heavy feeders.

Happy Gardening.
 

 

Garlic Scapes

My garlic plants are Red Russian hard necked.  I planted them last November 1^st -- the first thing to go into this year’s onion bed.  I spaced the cloves 8 inches apart in rows 1 foot apart across the bed.  I prepared the bed and stirred in one half cup of Bone meal and one half cup of Soya meal in the bottom of the planting trench of each four foot row.

In the middle of March, I top dressed the 6 inch high garlic plants with half a lb of Alfalfa meal and gently scratched it into the top inch of soil.  In the end of April, I mulched with last year’s old maple leaves.  The plants really like the evenly moist soil.

This week I noticed the scapes were already showing up as round, pencil thickness, long, spiral stems with infant seed heads. 

 

 I picked them all at once, cutting them near the last set of leaves.  

 

I later cut the scape stems to 4 inch lengths, discarding the immature seed heads and their long, coarse, pointed tips.  Many people use the scapes as a garlic substitute, but I find them a bit too mild for that.  They are great prepared like asparagus and eaten the same way.

The garlic crop should be fully ready to lift in mid-July.  

Happy Gardening.

Slug Fences and Beer

My Lovely Wife has fun growing and propagating Dahlias.  Each successful plant last year had the opportunity to become four or five more this year.  And so I made a new flower bed against the south fence.  It is a bit shady from the fence but we’ll see how things grow.  I restricted this flower bed to two feet wide.  Much easier to maintain than her wider one against the north fence – that is if you don’t step on the bed.

The grass in the yard next door is well maintained – it gets cut regularly every month…. well, maybe every five weeks.  It tends to grow into a hay field.  And that could be why the new flower bed was being invaded by slugs. 

Here in my part of the Pacific North West we get 62 inches of rain annually.  And the slugs grow to be eight inches long in a ‘good’ year. The slugs slipping under the fence and into the Lovely Wife’s dahlias were a tiny ¾ inch long.

First, we tried a bit of yeast and warm water in a rough flowerpot saucer.  Only got some earwigs.  Next, we tried using a smoother bowl and some excellent Czech Pilsner from Steamworks Brewing – more earwigs, that is until the evil raccoons got into the bowl and either drained it first or just dumped it over.  

Finally, I remembered my ancient slug fences. Many slug barriers sold today are made of copper.  Either a mesh, strip or tape.  Other barriers are made of some sheet metal.  Many need a smooth surface to attach to.  Most are expensive.  Some can be electrified.

Mine are low tech and made of 1.5 inch wide strips of old aluminum siding. They have a scratchy edge that the mollusks just don’t like to crawl over. I could serrate the edge even more with a pair of snips but they mostly work as is. And they’re always at the ready, hanging on the back fence.  With slits / notches near the ends they can be combined with others or just bent into a ring to surround each plant. 

I gently pushed the rings into the soil around the three most picked on plants.  And they seem to be doing the trick. 

But one other unprotected plant is now being abused.  All we need Is a bit more time for growth to get ahead of the beasties – so the fourth fence went up.  

This should mean even more dahlias for next year and more pilsner for me. 

Happy Gardening.

C.S.Lewis and the Temporary Bed Covers

My dear old retired Bible College Professor, Wally, was a big fan of C.S. Lewis.  Wally said Lewis got the idea for his book --- ‘The Screwtape Letters’ (about an arch demon writing letters to his subordinate demon) --- while sitting in a church service during a sermon.  He speculated that perhaps Lewis found the sermon boring and was daydreaming.  I didn’t agree with Wally’s perspective. 

I believe one gets the best ideas during a church service because that’s often when and where the Holy Spirit is moving.  At least that’s how I’ve found it.  I used to write for a club newsletter and many of my articles were just the gospel according to M.R. but the very best topics would come to me in church or when I was praying.  The ones that really meant something to the Lord and to people’s hearts.

For some time now I’ve had this problem on building a quick, temporary, easy to set up, clear plastic bed cover -- kind of like a mini greenhouse.  I had hoped to make several of them and move them around the garden in the spring.  First, they’d go over the onions, then maybe the strawberries, and later the beans or corn or squashes.  The covers would give the crops that extra bit of warmth during our incessant rains of our Pacific North West Spring.

Several years ago, I built one with galvanized electrical conduiting bent in the shape of a small house.  But it was a pain to put together using extra 2 X 3’s and screws and staples and such, it turned out to be heavy and very awkward and it was only six feet long.  It also had to be dismantled to be stored properly.  Here's what the three 'trusses' look like.

 

I’ve been at an impasse for years on how to get something else going.  TOG offered me some of his new wire spring loops and some row cover cloth but the wire hoops were for 30 inch beds and all in all that wasn’t quite what I was looking for.

Two and a half years ago, my Care Group Leader challenged me to keep a prayer journal.  After a grand struggle, I went for it and after a lifetime of a scatter gun prayer style I got organized and pushed through a more disciplined system in talking with God.  It’s definitely not gimme this and gimme that but rather praying for people in my life that need His cover and support.

“I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people—" 1 Timothy 2:1 (NIV)

 

My parents had done that – that’s what helped keep me on the straight and true, and now I was finally, more constructively, doing the same for people in my life, my friends and my family (there’s 20 of us at the dinner table when we’re all together).  But it’s still not quite an easy thing to do.

My Lovely Wife is an early person and usually turns off her light before 8:00 pm.  I’m more nocturnal and quit at midnight.  So I have this free time in the evening that could be used for good things.  If I haven’t stopped for prayer and it gets too late I do skip that evening.  And that’s what was happening a few nights ago.

It was getting late and I was debating not stopping my Most Important Activities and not taking time to pray when that old verse landed in my head.

“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” Matthew 6:33 (NIV)

Okay. Sure, I’ll take time for His kingdom.  And I did.

Something I’ve done since 1965 is read a passage of my Bible each night and near midnight, that same evening, before I turned off my light I was reading in 2 Peter,….. but I couldn’t concentrate on the passage.  Into my small mind was the solution to my old bed cover problem! 

I had a bit of trouble falling asleep that night.  My sleepy brain was trying to do the math in the dark. ½ (π d) = ?  That’s half the circumference of a circle or the length of a round arc over a bed.  Where d = 4 feet (bed width).  Would this work?  3.14 X 4 = 12.56.  ½ of 12.56 = 6.28 feet for an arc that is as high as it is wide.  I finally fell asleep.

For several years I’ve been using 4 foot by 6 foot sections of wire fencing for a number of things: lying flat on the newly seeded beds to keep the neighbours’ cats from digging it up, or setting up on 10 inch flowerpots over newly transplanted lettuces or onions (cats again), and holding autumn leaves on top of the carrot beds from blowing away in winter, plus making quick bins for storing my surplus leaves in the fall.  When not in use these sections hang on nails on my fence.

By pounding four small pegs into the edges of my paths to hold the wire fence section in position I could now use them for semi rigid wire arcs over a bed.  The pressure of the wire edge against the pegs held the section in an arc. 

 

Throw on some plastic with a few rocks on the paths to hold it there and I think I have a proper row tunnel. 

 

This can all be done quickly and easily, and I can remove the plastic anytime the days are warmer.  Right now it isn’t so much for warming or heating but more for keeping the cold rain off the struggling beans.

The 6 foot sections aren’t quite 6.28 feet and the pegs are a bit more than 4 feet apart so the arc is moderately flatter than a mathematical half cylinder but it stays clear of the plants and supports the plastic well.

 

And I won’t take any credit for this idea.  I’m just a regular guy of a cracked pot variety.

“But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.”  2 Corinthians 4:7 (NIV)

 

PTL!

Happy Gardening.

Always Learning

One needs to try new things in the garden.  There’s no end of knowledge one can learn.  And vegetable gardening takes a lot of knowledge.  People think you just drop seeds into the soil and voila.

Last year I tried Oregano.  In my youthful ignorance I thought you could just seed it outside, like Summer Savory.  My son TOG heard of my plans and just smiled.  When I opened the seed packet -- that seed was almost the smallest I’d ever seen.  There was no way you could keep it moist and maintained until it germinated unless it was in controlled conditions inside, under lights.  I had waited too late.  I had missed the starting pistol.  And lost that race.  Always learning.

This year I tried Basil.  I got smart and with my oregano started it indoors.  I was struggling / learning with my new LED grow light – getting the hang of how close to the leaves it needed to be.  My fluorescent tube lights had always needed to be within 1.5 inches or less of the youngest plants.  The full spectrum LED needed to be backed way off to not scorch the leaves.  Always learning.

TOG saw my young basil plants and pointed out some disease to avoid when the leaves were turning dark.  At least he didn’t just smile.  I finally set them out at the unused end of my cabbage / kale bed.  So here’s the result of my first try at Basil.

 

That looks very sad.

So what will I change next time? 

Keep them under fluorescents until I learn the proper spacings for LED’s.  Don’t let them sit in their pots too long.  Possibly stagger seedings to learn optimum seasonal timing.  Plan better where they’re going to be in the garden.  Probably time them to grow in the spinach / lettuce bed.  Maybe even read somewhere how to do it.

Those growers that sell potted Basil in the grocery stores – they really know what they’re doing.  Always Learning.

But Happy Gardening.

Germination Rates

I’ve been saving my own Blue Lake pole bean seed for years.  Of the 20 or so poles in my bean bed I save the plants on one corner pole for seed.  As long as the beans produced are long and straight, I leave the plants on that pole alone to mature and fully ripen.

Over the years I’ve had complaints from a few fellow gardeners, that commercially sold Blue Lake seed produces stringy beans.  As in old fashioned ‘String’ beans.  That’s not what mine are like.  And I’ve managed to supply some friends with my ‘Selected’ Stringless Blue Lake seed.  It appears some commercial seed growers haven’t been as studious in keeping bad pollen out of their Blue Lake plantings.  Or maybe they wanted to promote their ‘new and improved’ varieties and tarnish the Blue Lake reputation.

 

Blue Lakes have been the standard for taste and tenderness for over half a century, probably much longer.  Even to the point where several bush bean varieties were marketed as Bush Blue Lake.  I still believe bush beans just don’t have the full flavour of pole beans.  And I’m tempted to believe that productivity – lbs. per square foot – is greater for poles.

Recently I’ve had a problem with my germination rates for my beans.  Last year’s planting was almost disastrous.  It was my 2017 seed since I didn’t produce any during 2018 – my sabbath rest -- where I take a year off vegetable growing every seventh year.  The temperatures were good but they just didn’t come up very well.  I reseeded the missing spots.  Twice.  And that spread out my harvest over a longer period which gave an advantage to a brand new pest which I’ll write about in the future.  With all the mayhem, I didn’t save any of last year’s seed.

But I still have my 2015 seed. And this year it germinated well!  (89%)  You’d think five year old seed wouldn’t last but I have a bit of a special method for storing my seeds – once again another future posting.

Hopefully I’ll have a good crop this year, without the nasty new bugs and we’ll be able to retire my 2015 seed, but only after my new seed has proven good germination.

My purchased sweet corn has had a problem with germination as well.  My last two years, my favourite, Golden Jubilee (yes I’m an old fart) has been a disaster for germination.  The first time, 2017, I blamed West Coast Seeds.

The other block of Peaches and Cream Corn from Pacific Northwest Seeds came up great.

For 2019 I bought new Jubilee seed from PNW (more seed and cheaper than West Coast) and got the same dead response.  I was lucky to get five plants out of 27 seeds planted.  Maybe the same grower had supplied both seed companies?  I had good warm conditions and used my usual black plastic bed cover.

This year I tried again with brand new Jubilee seed from PNW – much greater success!  Due to lack of faith I’d placed three seeds in each planting spot rather than the usual two.  With limited back yard space one needs a plant in every spot.  Every single one came up. (100%)

 

Seed germination is a real concern.  Steve Solomon, who started Territorial Seeds in Oregon back in the 1970’s, said many seed companies of the day would give the budget seed rack suppliers the “sweepings off the floor”. 

Solomon recommended to buy from a supplier that supplies the farming community as well as gardeners.  These are the seed companies that sell larger quantities as well as small packets for farmers to test out in their conditions and markets.  These are companies that also list the tested germination rates right on the seed packet. 

They might cost more but when I can store my seed safely and under the right storage conditions for several years, then it’s worth it.  With poor germination you have nothing.

Happy Gardening.

Why Use Four-Foot-Wide Beds?

About 1980 I started reading Organic Gardening Magazines and Rodale Press books.  They were often discussing soil compaction in vegetable gardens.  In one of their writings they had a cut away photo of the root systems of two corn plants.  The roots went everywhere except they stopped dead next to the path.  I wish I still had that picture.  I converted my garden over to beds that year.  I have that picture of my first beds. (TOG and his sister) The corn spacing was pretty crazy.

Two years later I already had bricks in the paths.

At that time a local gardening columnist (not Brian Minter) advised in order to keep cabbage family transplants from falling over you must use your heel to firm them into the soil.  He was dead wrong.  He was actually restricting the root anchoring systems by compacting the soil.  In a bed, the robust and far spreading root systems of the cabbage family keep themselves from falling over.  Only a temporary X of two small sticks is all the support that a young cabbage transplant needs to weather the wind while it sends out a great network of roots to physically support itself.

Other advantages of beds --- I found my carrots were much easier to lift out.  There was no more digging around them.  I just grabbed their tops at the base with thumb and forefinger and lifted them out.  The same method worked with most weed pulling.  The only weeds that were hard to pull were the ones in the compacted paths.  Potatoes no longer needed to be dug up with a foot pushing down on a spading fork.  In the fall cleanup, the root systems of most remaining vegetable plants were very extensive.

So why four-foot-wide beds?

If you squat or kneel on the path and reach out sideways, most people can comfortably reach 24 inches.  That is what determines how wide to make a bed.  Therefore my beds are 48 inches wide and my paths are 18 inches wide. That equals 27% path and 73% growing space.  If a bed is less than 4 feet wide the number of paths needed per square foot of usable garden space increases.  In most backyards space is a restricting factor --- more paths less garden.

In unrestricted spaces, people tend to imitate agriculture and grow all vegetables in long rows with paths between each row.  And that was all because of Jethro Tull 
 No not the British rock group from the sixties (great flute), the earlier Jethro Tull. 
 

From Wikipedia:  “Jethro Tull – (agriculturist) was an English agricultural pioneer from Berkshire who helped bring about the British Agricultural Revolution.  He perfected a horse-drawn seed drill in 1700 that economically sowed the seeds in neat rows, and he later developed a horse-drawn hoe.  Tull’s methods were adopted by many great landowners and helped to provide the basis for modern agriculture.”

But backyard gardens aren’t agriculture.  They’re horticulture.

My son The Organic Grower (TOG) doesn’t imitate agriculture either.  His acre and a half under cultivation is in 30 inch beds with 12 inch paths. (72% growing area) His bed size is based on the width of his larger rear-tine tiller.  And he doesn’t step in his beds.  Like me he also walks beside his tiller on the paths.

With beds the fertilizer and soil amendments only go where the plants are growing and the watering when using a wand is only on the beds.  Weeding is easier when the crops are young and once the crops are fully established their optimum, tighter spacing shades out new weeds.  Poling and trellising are accomplished across the beds or in blocks and wind pollinators such as corn are more successfully pollinated when grown in blocks rather than long single rows.

As for wooden sides on ‘raised’ beds --- that’s nice.  But costly.  Is the wood treated with some ‘perfectly safe’ toxic waste? What do you fill the wooden beds with?  Usually something strange and imported like “Garden Mix”.  Take a magnifying glass to that and you’ll see mostly sawdust and sand.  Within a year or two that non decomposed carbon will suck most nitrogen away from the plants.  Why not use the topsoil that the land came with and build that legacy up with time?

Technically my beds are raised beds.  They are certainly higher than my paths.  I step on my paths and the beds stay high and raised.  Once I had a friend come over and he unknowingly stepped in a bed.  His size 13 shoe sank deep into the soil.  And that bed hadn’t been tilled for two months.

I use beds exclusively for the most productive use of my space.  And I don’t step in the beds. 

Happy gardening.