"Noydb" wrote in message
...
WCD wrote:


We bought a place in central Maine last year with an existing kitchen
garden that seems to lend itself very nicely to a "Foursquare" layout. I
would like to pursue this, but I'm confused about a few things.

It seems like a foursquare layout will give you raised beds with depths
much larger than the 4 feet I've always heard you wanted for raised
beds. The 4 foot depth is to enable you to reach into the garden from
either side and never have to get up and walk around in there. Those are
among the benefits of raised beds.

What am I missing here?

Re-draw your beds until they -do- meet this design characteristic (Don't
be
a slave to 48" ... a little larger or a little smaller will both work just
fine.) You can also have the garden contain smaller repeats of the larger
figure ... that is, cut a large square into two rectangles, two triangles
or four smaller squares.

Aim for structure and symmetry and the design goal will have been met.

Bill



----- Original Message -----
From: "Noydb"
Newsgroups: rec.gardens.edible
Sent: Tuesday, June 24, 2003 2:10 PM
Subject: Question about "Foursquare" garden


WCD wrote:


We bought a place in central Maine last year with an existing kitchen
garden that seems to lend itself very nicely to a "Foursquare" layout. I
would like to pursue this, but I'm confused about a few things.


What am I missing here?

Re-draw your beds until they -do- meet this design characteristic (Don't
be
a slave to 48" ... a little larger or a little smaller will both work just
fine.) You can also have the garden contain smaller repeats of the larger
figure ... that is, cut a large square into two rectangles, two triangles
or four smaller squares.

Aim for structure and symmetry and the design goal will have been met.

Bill
--

snip
It seems like a foursquare layout will give you raised beds with depths
much larger than the 4 feet I've always heard you wanted for raised
beds. The 4 foot depth is to enable you to reach into the garden from
either side and never have to get up and walk around in there. Those are
among the benefits of raised beds.
endsnip

Lost me here but that's always a good idea. To me, l x w x h refers to
overall lenght, overall width and h is overall height from grade (floor). So
reaching into a garden is a function of w, not of h.
As to width, 48" is considered to be optimal although 36" is a great deal
easier to work with.

As to 48" of soil depth, there is no doubt that the larger the volume of
soil mass, the better but.... a large cubic volume of soil will also take
much longer to gradually become stable as to pH and humus content. We're
talking years, from start to 'perfect' and few people take that needed 'long
view'. Moreover, much depends on terrain, personal preferences and budget.
The vast majority of plants will do well in far less than 10, let alone 40
odd inches of soil and the substrate (the soil beneath the raised beds) has
a lot to do with that, as does the type of plants to be grown. Tomatoes may
prefer access to unlimited soil depth but one would not grow tomatoes in the
same soil twice anyway. Therein is the logic of creating multiple smaller
raised beds: makes crop rotation easier.

The most cost-effective way to raise a raised bed is to form a midden, a
flat hump that should contain rocks, rubble etc. as well as soil. Drainage
is of critical importance and a 24 inch soil pad will add that, plus cost is
far less than an additional 2 feet of raised bed wall, unless you use field
stones as walls. Central Maine is full of good rocks, there is no better
material than rock to create a raised bed.

Back to width: raised beds are semi-permanent structures. If you can reach
in to 24" from either side could you do so in 10, 15 years from now? Why not
40" wide? 38"? It all depends on what you want to do.

If all there is on da teevee is reruns, this may prove to be of some
amusement value: http://members.shaw.ca/renaissancegardens/historic.htm


John
--
John H. Immink

www.renaissancegardens.com/