Hello! Since our soil is clay and rock, with minimal nutrients, I do most of my gardemning in raised beds. Last year I wanted to try potatoes the easy way, so I created a bed with a few inches of amended soil on top of the ground and then covered the potatoes with straw. They did fine but I do not want to grow potatoes this year. I did add more soil and amendments last fall so there are now maybe 3-4 inches of good soil. I would like to use the bed this year to grow either summer or winter squashes or cucumbers, since those are all large sprawling plants that take up alot of space in my raised beds. Are any of these feasible choices for such a shallow bed? Can anyone suggest other vegetables that would grow well there? I can not use it for greens because it gets no shade in the summer and it is hot and sunny where I live. Could I try peas in the spring and then replace with another crop in June? It is on the North side of the house so it gets shade in spring but none in summer. Thank you in adance for your ideas Satya Kaur
I think you can do Peas in the spring, then replace it with something else, yes. As far as squashes go, they do tend to take up alot of space. Why don't you plant them on the edge of the raised plot and let them spill over the sides? They're only taking up nutrients at the roots. AS for cuckes, have them climb up and away from the plot. The leaves of either the squash or the cukes are large enough that if you plant lettuce close enough, they can provide shade depending on how you place them. This kind of planting is similiar to the American indian method of planting the three sisters. Squash, corn and beans were planted together and worked well. The leaves of the squash shaded the roots of corn, beans climbed up the corn and I think there was some sort of interchange of nutrients at the root level too.
Satya, could you grow pole beans and peas, making a tent of them, and growing your greens unerneath the tent? I've done that with excellent results. I've also planted squashes and cucmbers and even melons on strong wire tents, letting them climbe up the trellis, rather than taking up my whole property.
Some root crops you could grow to help break up your soil are daikon radishes. They will be stunted at first, but just leave them in the ground to rot, and they will help to break up your soil, little by little, and are great at helping to increase the water holding capabilities of the soil as well. Some smaller radishes do just fine in shallow soil, and some of the baby carrots do just fine in that shallow soil, as well.
Keep in mind that even the most heaviest feeders of the vegetables, only need about 12-14" deep of topsoil anyway. If you got that much height built up in organic matter in your beds, you should be fine.
I have native heavy clay, acidic soil. Since I'm a 100% no-till gardener, I add at least 6-12" of new compost, cover crops, and organic mulches on top of my borderless raised beds on my 1.2 acres of garden beds, every year. By the end of the summer and fall growing seasons, due to high microbial growth in my soil, and hot Southern summer weather, you can't see much visible extra topsoil height added to the beds, to the naked eye! You can't never have too much compost! (LOL)
Thank you for your suggestions. I agree with you totally - I go through large quantities of compost every year. However the problem is that this bed has only 3-4 inches of good soil, not 12-14 inches like the raised beds. So I still do not know whether winter or summer squash or cucumbers are shallow rooted enought to grow happily in a bed with only that amount of amended soil. Can you advise? I am trying to remember the root systems when I pull them out in the autumn. I seem to remember that the squashes had deeper roots but the cucumbers were fairly shallow. I grow a wide variety of vegetables, but there is never quite enough space. If I could shift at least one of the vegetables that spread and sprawl to this god sized but shallow bed (20 sq feet) it would free up half of one of my raised beds for other things.Beans also seem to be fairly shallow rooted,would they work in there? I grow pole and bush, and they fill a raised bed every year. I just want to keep using it. Thank you
Satya, can you grow some cover crops and then chop them up instead of pulling them out at the end of the year. Leaving the roots in, especially of the beans and peas, improves the soil, and by just chopping up the mass of plants, it helps to add more and more soil to your bed. I started with a similar predicament six years ago in Nebraska, and by planting a series of cover crops, ended up with about eight inches of additional good garden soil by the end of one year. I started out in the spring with some cool season plants, like peas, mammoth red clover, and tyfon. Followed that with buckwheat, alfalfa, and sudan grass (sourghum), and followed that with daikon radish, hairy vetch, and winter wheat. Instead of tilling them in, I just mowed them off very short, leaving the roots intact and chopping up the tops very well, and planted directly into that. It worked great.
Thank you for this good advice, It is hard to give up the space for a year but will be worth it. My only dilemma is that I do not have a mower (it is too small a space to mow anyway). How do I cut it down to the roots? (Scissors seem a poor option). As for daikons, I have heard about their miraculous qualities and would love to see how they are going to break up the clay-rock hardpan that passes for soil about 3 inches below the surface. Especially since we have almost no rain anymore. I happen to love to eat them but if I grow 2 crops, I can eat one and let the other do its magic. Satya
