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Raised bed gardens, or gardens that are planted in elevated or terraced areas, are very popular in many parts of the world, and have been a tried and true gardening method for centuries.  Raised bed gardening systems solve problems like poor soil conditions, bad drainage, and a host of other issues that can make planting difficult.  Because much of the world is not blessed with perfect, fertile soil, raised bed gardens are constructed out of necessity.

If you are preparing to construct a garden, and you think that raised beds might meet your needs, there are a number of considerations to take into account before you begin digging.  In this article, we’ll explore some of the aspects of raised bed gardening that may play a role in your decision about whether this ancient gardening method is right for you.

Raised beds can be constructed of almost any strong type of material that is readily available in your area.  In other parts of the world, raised bed gardens are reinforced with rocks, wood, bamboo, and other materials that are indigenous to various regions.  If you decide to use wood, be sure to choose a wood that is not chemically treated, as those chemicals can leak out into the soil over time, poisoning and killing your plants.

Raised beds are ideal in hilly areas.  If your planned garden site is on a slope, consider terracing into the hill to form planting areas that are flat on top.  Furthermore, raised beds are an excellent solution if your garden is in a low spot or an area that does not drain well.  During the construction of the raised bed, you can inlay tile to exit at the lowest point.  Midwestern farmers learned generations ago that laying drainage tile in flat fields improves productivity because the soil drains better.  Regardless of your elevation, in some raised bed applications, you may need to line the inside of the bed with a sheet of black plastic to prevent the plants from rooting too deeply.  In these situations, laying drainage tile is also very important.

Soil type can also influence your decision to construct raised bed gardens.  If you live in an area with poor soil, raised beds give gardeners an opportunity to grow plants that otherwise would not thrive in their local soil conditions.  Once a raised bed is constructed, you can fill it with whatever soil type you think will be most beneficial to the plants you’ll be growing there.  If your plants require a more acidic or alkaline soil, you can also make those adjustments from one elevated area to another.

Climate may be another important consideration.  Raised beds do tend to dry out more quickly, and thus will require more frequent watering.  However, with raised beds, you can also place your irrigation system in a strategic location to reduce the volume of water needed.  If you are in a very rainy climate, the improved drainage provided by raised bed gardens will promote higher productivity and better opportunity for tending of the garden.

There are health benefits to raised bed gardens, too.  Because you don’t have to bend and stoop all the way over to the ground, you’ll be putting much less stress and fatigue on your back and joints.  Raised beds are also an excellent gardening solution for physically impaired individuals.  The height of the raised beds can be designed to correspond to the height of a wheelchair.  If you are building with handicap access in mind, be sure to allow enough distance between the raised beds so that a wheelchair can fit through.  You also need to insure each elevated section is narrow enough so that the individual can reach all the way into the center of the bed, as necessary.  Handicap accessible raised bed gardens can also benefit from brick or stone pathways, which are easier to navigate in a wheelchair.

Lastly, if you have problems with garden pests, such as squirrels, rabbits or deer, raised bed gardens may be a good gardening solution because they can be more difficult for these animals to access.  Raised bed gardens can also be easily penned in with netting or fencing to keep unwanted animals out.

Constructing raised bed gardens is no small job.  Before beginning, it’s important to take all considerations into account to be sure that this method of gardening is right for you.  For many gardeners, raised beds are ideal.  For some gardeners who already have good soil and drainage conditions, they are unnecessary.  Either way, with a little research and forethought, you’ll make the decision that is best for you and your plants.  And if you do decide to construct raised bed gardens in your yard, you will likely enjoy years of gardening success from your efforts.

Organic gardening has increasingly become an important part of the curriculum in schools around the world. Teachers at every grade level find themselves teaching it to students, and sometimes being called on to give a speech to a group of parents. As a career educator and principal, I know the difficulty of opening up time for speech preparation, and offer this organic gardening speech for your use. Feel free to edit it to fit your needs.

Organic Gardening Speech

How selfish are you? On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the highest, how selfish would you rate yourself? If you are the least bit selfish, you might be interested in organic gardening.

An organic gardening speech might seem more appropriate coming from a Home Economics teacher, but I am just selfish enough that I love organic gardening. I want to share that love with you and with your children.

Imagine

I want you to come with me, in imagination, to a time and place before the Industrial Revolution. The year is 1707. It is late summer. We find ourselves walking the streets of a small town. Houses are spaced well apart for privacy. Land stretches out behind each house. As we look, we notice that much of that land is taken up by gardens. Here and there, we see both adults and children actively engaged in gardening. The plants are beautiful.

You call to one of the adults and ask what they use to make the garden so lush. A broad smile breaks, and through the smile come the words, “Feed the soil, and the soil will feed the plants.”

You shake your head. Poor people. Too bad they don’t know about that miracle combination of chemicals you saw advertised on TV last week. That’s the easy way to grow spectacular plants!

Dinner

The organic gardener invites us to join them for the evening meal, and we accept. At dinner, we join in the prayer of thanks, and then watch in amazement as the children, one after another, begin eating fresh vegetables.

You yourself are not that fond of vegetables, but you politely take a small serving of each. You bite into a leaf of steamed cabbage, and your eyes open wide in amazement. It is sweet – twice as sweet as the cabbage you buy at your local market! You watch a small child fill his mouth with dark green kale, and shudder. There’s a small spoonful of the nasty vegetable on your own plate, and you pick at it, putting a single small leaf in your mouth. Amazing! It, too, is twice as sweet as any kale you ever ate. The same seems true of every vegetable on the table. You decide that if your supermarket vegetables were this good, you would eat a lot more of them.

Our imaginary trip ends at that dinner table, and we return to the present.

Organic Gardening’s Benefits

Organic gardening has many benefits. If you are completely selfish, you will want those benefits for yourself. If you are unselfish, you will want those benefits for your family. Let me give you just three of organic gardening’s benefits.

1. Taste: Organic gardening has been proven to produce tastier fruits and vegetables. A Hong Kong study measured Brix levels, the percentage of sugar in plant juices, using produce from organic gardening and from non-organic gardening. The results showed that organic gardening produced produce that was 2 to 4 times as sweet as that produced by non-organic gardening. Sweeter fruits and vegetables are tastier, and easier to eat, whether you are a young person or an adult. Organic gardening helps us eat better by providing tastier fruits and vegetables.

2. Nutrition: Organic gardening has also been found to provide nutritionally superior produce. Virginia Worthington, of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, compared the composition of vegetables grown simultaneously under different farming conditions. Her work included 41 studies with 1,240 comparisons of 35 vitamins and minerals. Worthington found that organic gardening produced vegetables and fruits that were higher in most minerals and vitamins than those from non-organic gardening. Not only that, organic gardening produce was lower in potentially harmful nitrates, which result from nitrogen fertilizers. Dr. Worthington concluded that produce from organic gardening is nutritionally superior. You and your family will enjoy better health with fruits and vegetables from organic gardening. (Effect of Agricultural Methods on Nutritional Quality: A Comparison of Organic with Conventional Crops, Virginia Worthington MS, ScD, CNS, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, 1998, Alternative Therapies, Volume 4, 1998, pages 58-69)

3. Exercise: Finally, organic gardening offers you and your children regular daily exercise in the outdoors. Organic gardening helps you build muscles, especially important core muscles. Organic gardening gets you into the sunlight where you can absorb essential vitamin D. Organic gardening is a great stress management tool. Organic gardening gives you an outlet for creativity. It provides satisfaction as you see your work produce useful fruits, herbs, and vegetables.

We could talk about the aesthetic pleasures of organic gardening – how beautiful that garden might become. We could talk about how you can save money with organic gardening – growing your produce instead of purchasing.

Finally, we could talk about how important it is for our children to learn about organic gardening, to embrace it as the way to better health, and to practice it with school, home, and community gardens.

An organic gardening speech could go on for hours, but I’m going to stop here, hoping that I have whetted your appetite enough that you will seek out more information on organic gardening.

Helpful Tip for Speech-givers

A few large bowls of beautiful organic produce can be set on the platform or around the room to help visual learners picture organic gardening.

Most gardeners live in areas where they can grow anything without much effort. If they plant seeds and water is, chances are that a beautiful lush plant will sprout in a few weeks. However, if you live somewhere like Colorado, you will know what it feels like to have a very small variety of plants that could grow naturally. In fact, it is quite the challenge to try to grow a wide number of plants, most of all when the world in which you live seems to be working against your plans of doing so.

A lot of people opt to solve this problem by feeding their plants with the widest variety of fertilizer and chemicals possible. And although this works most of the time, it still seems unnatural to have to rely on materials made by man to keep plants alive. Also, some may find it unnatural and uncomfortable to eat vegetables and fruits that are mostly made of pure chemicals.

One very reliable gardening theory that is capable of growing a variety of plants is by creating a microclimate for each individual plant. This means you will have to regulate several factors for each plant, such as shade, moisture, sunlight and wind by using shading umbrellas, extra water, wind barriers, and amounts of compost. This is quite a challenging task, however, but it is great to know that each plant will be growing in its own individual, ideal conditions.

If you are up for the challenge of producing microclimates, you will need to plan out every single detail way in advance. Try finding a large bush or tree that will grow naturally fast to use for shade. These can be found in a lot of undeveloped plots of land and was usually left there without any care of planting, which is ideal for your situation. Usually, one plant that grows can bring about another growing plant that is more desirable.

If your backyard has a fence, then you already have quite a good amount of shade to work with, which you can use to start the microclimate process. You could combine this with a large bush or a screen for the latter half of the day, if the fence does not already take care of that. Fences are also very useful as a wind barrier for more fragile plants.

Once the shade has been taken care of, whether natural or unnatural, your little environment has already started to become less harsh. Take note that this process happens gradually and you should always find a new plant to place in the shade of others ones, so your choices are more open. Just because you went for a rugged plant initially doesn’t mean you have to keep using rugged plants. For example, you can opt for one that survives through colder temperatures for a change.

If the next plant you are planning on growing needs more moisture than is available in your general area, try installing a small pond or fountain; this will take care of the problem with its evaporation. Some may think that installing a pond or fountain is a mere waste, but it will seriously make things better for your garden through its indirect watering process. Additionally, fountains are very attractive and could be beneficial in beautifying your garden.

There are a lot of stages to this process, but everyone has different goals and garden setups, so explaining each and every one won’t make much sense. You should simply remember that, to reach your goal, careful research must be done on each plant that you wish to grow in your garden. Find out all that you can about the area in which it usually flourishes and try to imagine how you can create a similar area in your own garden. Most of the times, you will able to take control of your own environment and recreate it as you wish. All it takes is planning and strategy.