Construction Slides from the Vertical Gardening Seminar

OSU/Master GardenerMini-College

2012

Raised Bed Construction

Sizing – 4’ max width Materials – spit face block – 4” best (no PT) Foundation - choices Drain vents – fabric + ¼ minus Hardware cloth – ½” galvanized – tight fit Trellis PVC – “U” bolts

• Enables vertical trellising• Enables Hooping you beds – to extend season

Garden structure: Raised Beds & Vertical Gardening

Use ½” EMT ( Electrical Metal Tubing) – about $2.00 per 10’ length – Lowes / Home Depot etc

Bend corners of trellis with tubing bender or use a 90 degree “L”fitting

Join sides together with ½” EMT coupler (screws together) Use pre-tied STRONG nylon netting with a minimum of 6”

openings (I prefer 7”)- I use Park Seed trellis netting – recommend you get the 5’ x 60’ roll ($25) as the 5’ x 15’ costs $15

Use black (UV protected) tie wraps to secure netting to frame

Maximum trellis width is about 55” – 60” My trellises still look new after 5 years

Trellis Construction

Trellis Construction

Trellis Construction

Trellis Construction

Install trellises in PVC holders inside raised beds

You can install trellises anywhere by using ½” rebar – 3’ long, driven 18” into the ground … then slide the trellis over the rebar. You can pull the rebar out and put your trellis in a new location at will.

Trellis Installation

Hooping your Raised Beds

Hooping your Raised Beds

Hooping your Raised Beds

 In a Raised Bed you have complete control of the soil that will grow your plants. It’s also a reasonably small volume of soil compared to Horizontal Gardens, so costs are more reasonable to create a superb growing medium.

I recommend you fill your beds with:

50-50 or 60-40 compost / sandy loam mix (I use Highway Fuel)

Do a soil analysis and amend as prescribed to make it perfect

I do soil analysis every other year – sometimes yearly – using small samples from all the beds for an average.

 Soil

Please contact me at

harryolson@comcast.net

or

503-315-8313

If you have any questions or comments…