Starting a Small Kitchen Garden in Raised Beds

Why Raised Beds Suit a Small Plot

If your garden is little more than a patio, a narrow strip behind the shed or a pocket of lawn you have finally decided to dig up, raised beds are the kindest way to begin. A bed one metre square will feed a household far better than the same area of tired border, because you control the soil, the drainage and the weeds. You also save your back: working at waist height rather than crouching over heavy clay makes an enormous difference on a wet Saturday in March.

The real advantage, though, is depth. In a bed thirty centimetres deep you can grow carrots without fighting stones, and in one forty-five centimetres deep you can raise parsnips and maincrop carrots properly. Build in untreated timber, brick or woven hazel, but avoid old railway sleepers and anything that has been stained or preserved with creosote.

Siting, Sizing and Making the Most of Light

Vegetables want sun above all else. Aim for six hours of direct light in midsummer; salad leaves and chard will tolerate a little shade, but tomatoes, courgettes and beans will sulk. Watch your plot through a day before you commit, and remember that a bed on a south-facing patio wall can become fiercely hot, so plan for shade netting in July.

A comfortable working width is 1.2 metres, which lets you reach the middle from either side without stepping on the soil. Length is up to you, though 2.4 metres is a sensible standard so that timber cuts without waste. Leave paths of at least forty-five centimetres between beds — more if you use a wheelbarrow — and consider bark chip or gravel rather than grass, which creeps in and harbours slugs.

• Mark out beds with string before building, then live with the layout for a week.
• Keep a water butt near the beds; hauling cans from the far tap soon loses its charm.
• Orient long beds north to south so crops shade each other evenly.

Filling the Beds with Fertile Soil

Good soil is not cheap, but it is the one investment that pays every year. The simplest reliable mix is roughly equal parts topsoil, well-rotted manure or garden compost, and a soil conditioner such as leafmould. If you are filling a large bed on a budget, use the Hugelkultur principle: lay logs, prunings and cardboard in the bottom third, then top up with the good stuff. The buried wood rots slowly, holds moisture and feeds the bed for years.

Do not fill beds with subsoil dug from elsewhere and expect miracles. Spend the money on the top thirty centimetres, and top-dress each spring with a five-centimetre layer of compost rather than digging it in. Worms will do the incorporation for you. Add a handful of blood, fish and bone per square metre before planting hungry crops, and check the pH if you plan to grow brassicas — they prefer around 6.5 to 7.

Compact Crops That Earn Their Space

On a modest plot, choose varieties bred for close planting and cut-and-come-again harvesting. Anything that takes six months to produce a single head is a luxury.

• Salad leaves — sow little and often, every three weeks, for a continual supply.
• Radishes and beetroot — quick, cheerful and perfectly happy in shallow soil.
• Dwarf French beans — heavy crops from a small footprint, no support needed.
• Courgettes — two plants are ample for a family; give each a metre of space.
• Cherry tomatoes — grown up a cane in a sunny corner or a large pot.
• Cut-and-come-again chard — crops for nine months from a single sowing.
• Herbs — parsley, chives and thyme along a bed edge, where they earn their keep.

Grow upwards wherever you can. Climbing beans, cucumbers and even small squashes will scramble up a teepee or a simple frame, freeing the soil below for lettuce.

Planning a Simple Crop Rotation

Rotation sounds grand, but in four small beds it is simply a matter of not growing the same family in the same place two years running. Group your crops into four rough camps and shuffle them one bed along each season.

• Bed one: legumes — peas, broad beans, French beans. They fix nitrogen.
• Bed two: brassicas — cabbage, kale, broccoli. They follow the beans and enjoy the richness.
• Bed three: roots — carrots, parsnips, beetroot. They dislike fresh manure.
• Bed four: potatoes and salads, then a green manure over winter.

Keep a simple notebook, or a rough sketch on the shed wall. It is astonishing how quickly a season's planting is forgotten by the following spring.

Watering, Feeding and the Quiet Pleasures of Smallholding

Raised beds dry out faster than open ground, so water thoroughly rather than little and often — a good soak twice a week in dry weather beats a daily sprinkle. Mulch with compost or straw to lock in moisture, and water in the evening when less is lost to evaporation. Feed tomatoes and courgettes weekly once flowers set, and keep on top of weeds while they are small enough to pinch out with a hoe.

Above all, keep the plot small enough to enjoy. Two well-tended beds will give you more pleasure, and more supper, than six neglected ones. Sow a few flowers among the vegetables — calendula, nasturtium, borage — to bring in the bees and to remind you that a kitchen garden is meant to be a lovely thing as well as a useful one.