The Beechgrove Garden 2022 episode 2: In Beechgrove, Calum is designing and building a garden modest in size and modest in budget, but big on ideas and inspiration for everyone starting their own gardens.
There is a new crop of Beechgrowers for 2022, with six more budding gardeners making regular appearances throughout the series to share their personal gardening video diaries from their own homes, plots and gardens all over Scotland. Meanwhile, George is in his allotment in sunny Joppa and, as ever, he has been busy over the winter building more accessible raised beds and laying new paths ready for the season’s growing.
The Beechgrove Garden 2022 episode 2
Raised beds are a great way of growing a wide range of plants, and are particularly popular for growing fruit and vegetables. They are a good way of boosting drainage and can be used to introduce a different soil type to your garden. Raised beds are also a useful way to garden if you have restricted mobility, as they reduce the need to bend. Raised-bed gardening is a form of gardening in which the soil is raised above ground level and usually enclosed in some way. Raised bed structures can be made of wood, rock, concrete or other materials, and can be of any size or shape. The soil is usually enriched with compost.
Vegetables are grown in geometric patterns, much closer together than in conventional row gardening. The spacing is such that when the vegetables are fully grown, their leaves just barely touch each other, creating a microclimate in which weed growth is suppressed and moisture is conserved.
Raised beds lend themselves to the development of complex agriculture systems that utilize many of the principles and methods of permaculture. They can be used effectively to control erosion and recycle and conserve water and nutrients by building them along contour lines on slopes. This also makes more space available for intensive crop production. They can be created over large areas with the use of several commonly available tractor-drawn implements and efficiently maintained, planted and harvested using hand tools.
This form of gardening is compatible with square foot gardening and companion planting. Circular raised beds with a path to the center (a slice of the circle cut out) are called keyhole gardens. Often the center has a chimney of sorts built with sticks and then lined with feedbags or grasses that allows water placed at the center to flow out into the soil and reach the plants’ roots. A self watering raised bed known as a wicking bed is particularly beneficial in dry climates and are often made by converting Intermediate bulk container
