My husband and I are hotly debating our planned vegetable garden addition.  We are more than doubling it’s size and the controversy surrounds the beds.  Currently we have (8) 4′ x 4′ and (2) 8′ x 4′ cedar beds that we got locally from this great place in western Massachusetts.  The beds are charming – using a colonial peg system to hold them together rather than nails.   I think we should simply double what we have, it will keep a uniform tidy look and be easy to accomplish.  My husband (being more cost conscious) however disagrees, he wants to build raised beds using hessian (that’s British for burlap) sacks.  He saw something once like this and thinks it is a great idea.  I think it will last about one season before rotting away and leaving us with a pile of whatever we fill it with.  I think the answer is obvious, but the debate rages on.

As in many of these type of discussions, where a winner and a loser may never be definitively decided, I am wondering if perhaps a modified solution might be in order.

The reason for raised beds is that we lave a lot (a. lot.) of rocks in our soil.  They just keep percolating to the top.  There is a cluster of world renowned seismologists that live down the road…apparently moved here by Harvard University because the hill, atop which my house sits, is actually formed by a solid piece of ledge that interestingly extends very far into the core of the earth (apparently only one other place on earth shares this level of ledge depth) – Seismologists think it is cool and interesting enough to make them gather…I however, find the visual image of the rocks yet to rise, daunting.

We just try not to deal, by putting rock free soil on top.  But maybe this is being too lazy (though the thought of all the work exhausts me) and to be honest, I struggle with the moving of large amounts of topsoil and paying for truckloads of something I already have in spades. So,  I am thinking about building a few Keyhole gardens and Bag gardens which are being used in Africa to help gardeners there to grow with minimal water.

The Keyhole Vegetable bed is a raised bed. It’s about 1m (3′6″) high, and the outer bed, where the vegetables are growing, slopes down from a central hollow column. There’s an access path to the column (giving the bed a “keyhole” shape viewed from above) and inside it is what amounts to a compost bin, held in with hessian: you fill it with kitchen waste, stable manure, grass clippings – whatever you’d put on your compost heap. Africans tip on water saved from washing up.   The idea is that the water will drain through and take all the nutrients with it.  It feeds from below the topsoil, so rather than watering on the surface and all the water evaporating, everything’s coming up from underneath.  Apparently in Africa, this garden will feed a family of six through the three-month dry period, when crops in the fields simply dry out.

Similarly, the idea of a bag garden is that you can grow more vegetables in a smaller space.  Hessian sacks are used and are filled with a core of stones surrounded by compost.  The central column keeps the water from getting stuck in the top layers and helps it to filter all the way through.  That means even veg planted through pockets cut in the bottom of the bag get enough water. To get the column into the centre of the bag (or pot) take a plastic drinks bottle and cut off the neck and base, giving you a plastic tube. Put the tube in the centre of your pot, and fill it with stones. Pack the compost around it, then lift the tube up, leaving the stones in the soil, then repeat until you get to the top of the pot.  It is like a rudimentary strawberry pot.  I have stones…plenty to fill the bag and plenty more to build keyhole gardens — but the labor….

So I am curious, I am wrong about the hessian/burlap?  I quite like the look of the tall bag gardens and am willing to give it a try but really, what about rot?  hmmm…. whose got an opinion?  Am I right or is my husband?

found via city farmer news. All images from Cowfiles.