Raised garden beds

[RocketDog]

14 hours ago, Tropposurfer said:

My early working life was as a horticulturist before going into the building trades. Don't put wood in the bottom you might just get a bacterial disease called phytophera introduced through the breakdown of the cellulose in the wood (which is bad bad bad for root systems even in veggies and if it develops will work through the ground and kill trees all around).

Break the ground up under the new containers so the drainage is good (if its compacted that's not good) and if there are any weeds there remove by the roots. 

Successive layering of straw, lucerne, home made compost (bagged from nursery is okay too), dry leaves, old veggie cuttings, (no onions of citrus),  old animal poo (bagged treated poo from nursery is good - sheep is best but chicken, cow, or horse is okay but horse has less nutrients), and soil until the beds are totally full. The level will drop as the vegetable material breaks down. Wait for few months before planting in this.

If you can find a way to get regular poo supplies from somewhere (maybe some elephant added too and make a compost bin and stockpile it to age. Collect all your fruit and veggie scraps in a lidded bucket, go and add them to the compost pile (dig a hole and bury to keep pests away - cover with a piece of old carpet helps the composting and encourages compost worms.

Be careful with anything you put into the containers - weed seeds.

Mulch the soil surface with straw but keep away from plant stems. Get a simple pH test kit and once the beds have had a few months to mature and rot turn them over and add soil and compost to raise the bed levels to just below the bed edges (maybe 100-75 mm). pH test the soil and any soil you introduce to the beds. Don't plant in fresh manure as new manure has tons of urea in it and can be very acidic, burn or kill plants. Remember while soils can be reasonable in nutrients you need good microbial activity and worms to really get good results so don't just get a load of soil that has almost zero organic matter. It will have minerals etc in it but without the orgasnic and microbial input the plants can't get at it even when its in solution.

You also have to replenish the organic material is the soils through the growing year, and vary what . you put in the beds a bit. Things like blood and bone meal is great for long term health and nutrient release. Lime for things like peas and beans. I'd also suggest you buy a decent vegetable propagation and care book (specific to your region) to refer to for planting species, times, and care. Good luck, gardening is wonderful.

Great post. 

You mention a book specific to your area. I'd like to know what you found. 

I've been gardening in America for 50 years but had to start fresh here. I scoured the web for planting time info for Thailand and found very little. 

I tried growing in pots for three years here with no success. This year I grew directly in the soil and got a bumper crop of REAL tomatoes. A great treat compared to the insipid things they call tomatoes here. I was giving them away to farang living near me. 

 

Now I plant tomatoes around September and they do very well until around april in the huahin area. I have a single sweet bell pepper plant making decent fruit now, even though the toms are stressed and have no blossoms. Summer squash have been a total bust so far. 

 

I've resorted to just planting seeds from a variety of vegetables every two months to see what germinates, when, and how well it fruits, or doesn't. Cukes are doing very well now. Have cantaloupe coming up. Hard to say how it will do. Okra bears year round if you like it. 

I plan to put some results on the TVF gardening forum sometime. 

It's too bad that forum is so poorly supported. We could collectively share a lot of info. My goal is to create a Thai planting guide eventually. Please send me any tips you have on what grows well and when to plant. I'll archive it for sure. 

I used magnesium sulfate from Lazada to aid flowering and it worked beautifully. 

I've been collecting seeds from a variety of American heirloom (non hybrid) tomatoes that I'm glad to share. PM me if you're interested. I've been saving them from each generation for three years which may help them be acclimatized to Thai seasons. 

This year I froze and dried tens of pounds of beautiful tomatoes for salsa, pasta sauce, etc. I especially love my dried tomato chips. 

[rickudon]

16 hours ago, deadbeat said:

Just read thru all the posts here but didn't see anyone using the system my wife uses. She uses a large locking brick, it has 2 stubs on the topside which prevents the built wall moving and the advantage to this is that they can be made any size or height. She's made about 7 or 8 beds with this system, some a metre square and some are 5x1 metres so great beds, these all have veg in so are 4 or 5 bricks high. Easy as.

Cheers.

 

 

I have used this, but found when soil waterlogged, even a 2 brick high wall will start to lean over. I had to rebuild every year or 2 (and family members keep borrowing them to prop things up!)

[tifino]

 a year or back, I put in 3 rectangular corrugated Colorbond units, at 45cm high. 

 

mrs scoffed, but then after I was successful with one  taken over by strawberries; another'n'another  with Fejoa, Cherry, Fig and Guava shrub trees flourishing - she decided to fill the empty spaces with White Radish... 

 - and then encountered the one and only problem... where I hadn't forethought to actually toss'n'turn the original garden soil base, prior to installing the 3 frames... 

 - ended up with a mass of J shaped white radishes...  ???? 

 

[LawrenceN]

On 5/16/2021 at 3:28 PM, Kanada said:

 

I would never attempt to move one full of dirt...is it full ones you’re referring to moving them on rollers?

Yes. Our back patio area was originally tile. It wasn't fit for the weather and hard use, and eroded underneath. We had to move things around when we decided to  re-do the area with hexagonal concrete pavers. The Thai Yai workers learned a new trick that day. 

[RocketDog]

3 hours ago, rickudon said:

I have used this, but found when soil waterlogged, even a 2 brick high wall will start to lean over. I had to rebuild every year or 2 (and family members keep borrowing them to prop things up!)

The bricks I use for raised beds sound like the ones earlier described. Mine have holes in them. When stacked one can drive a rebar spike all the way through the bricks into the earth, adding support. I've not needed to do that yet though and they've been in place for several years.

 

I'm guessing you would have noticed that if were it possible.

[LawrenceN]

20 hours ago, deadbeat said:

Just read thru all the posts here but didn't see anyone using the system my wife uses. She uses a large locking brick, it has 2 stubs on the topside which prevents the built wall moving and the advantage to this is that they can be made any size or height. She's made about 7 or 8 beds with this system, some a metre square and some are 5x1 metres so great beds, these all have veg in so are 4 or 5 bricks high. Easy as.

Cheers.

 

 

I have a lot of these, been planting roses in them for years. I have one raised bed alongside the front porch that is seven layers (70 cm) tall. That one has rebar in every vertical slot, no mortar,  to keep them in place. 

[Kanada]

Hey everyone

my concrete rings arrived an hour ago...3 100 cm’s and one little 40 cm (a mistake but a 90 baht mistake I can live with and kind of cute for flowers ???? 

Now I have to level (and I have a a fish eye level before someone asks)????

Any secrets here....one big one leveled easy as I had the ground prepped but the little one ????☠️????☠️
I have 2 more big ones to do and it’s already 36 degrees so looking for a secret tip someone might know to save me from having to put money in the sweat jar????

[Rampant Rabbit]

The  concrete  rings  over a  6  year period  will  have the steel bands inside go rusty and break the concrete.

[colinneil]

 These rings have been in use now for over six years, as good as the day they were placed there.

[Kanada]

24 minutes ago, colinneil said:

 These rings have been in use now for over six years, as good as the day they were placed there.

Yes I’d be surprised if water got inside the concrete to the rings

[cooked]

42 minutes ago, Kanada said:

Yes I’d be surprised if water got inside the concrete to the rings

There seems to be some confusion between the concrete rings meant for cesspools, which will break and rust really easily, and concrete rings meant for road drainage and are more expensive. 

[rumak]

On 5/16/2021 at 5:47 PM, jvs said:

We have been using rings for years,works great.We make our own compost also

 

looks good.     what part of thailand are you living in ?   just curious.

[cooked]

For larger surfaces I would bang in bamboo stakes every 40 - 50cm and then interweave with split bamboo, which looks quite nice. By the time they have rotted away (?three years) it'll be time to renew the soil. 

I never heard about the dangers of burying wood at the bottom, I only heard that it was very advantageous to do so, as their rotting provides nourishment  to the soil as well as drainage. Called Hugelkultur.

[jvs]

8 minutes ago, rumak said:

 

looks good.     what part of thailand are you living in ?   just curious.

We are near Cha-am.

 

[drtreelove]

On 5/16/2021 at 3:35 AM, Tropposurfer said:

Don't put wood in the bottom you might just get a bacterial disease called phytophera introduced through the breakdown of the cellulose in the wood (which is bad bad bad for root systems even in veggies and if it develops will work through the ground and kill trees all around).

May I offer a clarification.  Although "wood in the bottom" would be a questionable practice in termite country, I don't believe that  wood as a building material would likely introduce Phytophthora root and crown rot.  This is a soil borne pathogen, which is not a bacterial disease, but a fungus-like organism called a "water mold".  Phytophthoras are there, waiting for the right conditions to proliferate in over-wet soil, so over-watering or anything that impairs drainage could be a causal factor in the development of root rot.

[Kanada]

43 minutes ago, drtreelove said:

May I offer a clarification.  Although "wood in the bottom" would be a questionable practice in termite country, I don't believe that  wood as a building material would likely introduce Phytophthora root and crown rot.  This is a soil borne pathogen, which is not a bacterial disease, but a fungus-like organism called a "water mold".  Phytophthoras are there, waiting for the right conditions to proliferate in over-wet soil, so over-watering or anything that impairs drainage could be a causal factor in the development of root rot.

OK!

The wood isn’t really all that important but I would use it as a filler....wood that’s been dead for at least two years

Leaves will work well too and I have lots that are half rotted as well as a bushel of little rose apples that have fallen from the tree too early to seed anywhere!

They delivered one ring that’s way too small for anything other than flower pot but the others will be for kale and mint etc all used everyday for cooking and one for peas and one for beans!

id really like to buy some good green onion sets but don’t know where to get them yet!

Those we get here I. Town don’t resemble what I’m used to at home at all

B

[Kanada]

2 hours ago, cooked said:

There seems to be some confusion between the concrete rings meant for cesspools, which will break and rust really easily, and concrete rings meant for road drainage and are more expensive. 

These rings are manufactured here in town and seem to be used for almost everything by the looks of it.

Ive looked at a number that have been in use or laying around for a number of years and don’t see any damage at all!

I’m not worried about that at all but thanks for the warning

[elgenon]

On 5/16/2021 at 4:29 PM, Kanada said:

and there’s a little satisfaction to having “made it yourself”.(?) struggling for the right term here but you know what I mean!

Yeah, not quite "pot sticker". But similar. 555

[Kanada]

Well finished one big ring and wife is working on the little one....she won’t put any filler in the bottom and even strains the dirt so no lumps or visible weeds????

I forgot how many wheelbarrows of dirt one of these rings holds especially when I’m digging it out from under big trees but the soil is great stuff....

I put rotted leaves, apple fruit that dropped way too early and rotted, a pail of avocados the big tree unloaded as it couldn’t handle them all....then good dirt, half a bag of old dried cow poop and a few shovels of sand and then mixed the top six inches well.

All the lumps and clay bits and dry pieces of rotted wood will go in the bottom of the next ring.

This is the ring for kale etc and all things we use for cooking

decided the mint would get its own container as back home the wild mint really spreads...maybe this one doesn’t but no chances

[rickudon]

19 hours ago, Kanada said:

 

They delivered one ring that’s way too small for anything other than flower pot but the others will be for kale and mint etc all used everyday for cooking and one for peas and one for beans!

id really like to buy some good green onion sets but don’t know where to get them yet!

Those we get here I. Town don’t resemble what I’m used to at home at all

B

Peas are not a tropical crop, although they will grow, yields are very low - i used to get about 2 pods per plant!

Likewise onions also not successful - all the ones you see are imported, You can buy shallots and plant those ( a dry season crop).

[Kanada]

2 minutes ago, rickudon said:

Peas are not a tropical crop, although they will grow, yields are very low - i used to get about 2 pods per plant!

Likewise onions also not successful - all the ones you see are imported, You can buy shallots and plant those ( a dry season crop).

Maybe the altitude up here but I had pretty good luck with both peas and Thai longbeans 2 years ago so I'll probably try again ????

Corn was looking good and then bugs got it really bad before I noticed so I gave it up....and I raised the worlds tiniest watermelon so wont be putting those in again.

Id love to try some pumpkins like we have back home (I dont even recognize these grown here) and some sunflowers that grow 8' high with the huge heads) but keeping it simple.

Also proper green onion sets....if I could find them! They are grown by the truckload commercially here In Samoeng as is garlic but they're different than I'm used to.

[rickudon]

On 5/19/2021 at 10:54 AM, Kanada said:

Maybe the altitude up here but I had pretty good luck with both peas and Thai longbeans 2 years ago so I'll probably try again ????

Corn was looking good and then bugs got it really bad before I noticed so I gave it up....and I raised the worlds tiniest watermelon so wont be putting those in again.

Id love to try some pumpkins like we have back home (I dont even recognize these grown here) and some sunflowers that grow 8' high with the huge heads) but keeping it simple.

Also proper green onion sets....if I could find them! They are grown by the truckload commercially here In Samoeng as is garlic but they're different than I'm used to.

 Ok, if you live at some altitude peas might work. Unfortunately Udon has a rather unforgiving climate. I have also  tried runner beans (just to see if they would work), broad beans, beetroot, carrots and spinach. Runner beans actually grew to my surprise, but flower set was zero. Died end of March with hot weather. Broad beans grew but fared even worse than the runners. Spinach is hard but was a success this year (once out of about 5!) Beetroot get roots some years (50/50) and carrots actually do quite well - have had up to 10 kilos but none once or twice.

 

Dwarf beans get 2 flushes if your lucky before death, Long beans do fine, but not keen on the taste. Swiss chard was a success this year. Bell peppers struggle (too hot), tomatoes good if you can get them to crop before April, after that disease and rotten fruit are big problems. Have grown a few potatoes, but crops very small. Sweet potato growing now. Okra does well. Grow cabbage when i can get it rather than the tough chinese kale.

 

Our soil is basically clay, so unworkable if too wet or too dry. Slowly adding sand to improve drainage, and making compost. Compost making is a struggle - My M-in-L has no idea, throws many grass sods with soil into the compost, turning it into a grass/weed factory. When the grass is cut, a race to get it first - she burns it and every dry leaf in sight. Such are the trials of gardening here!

[Kanada]

On 5/16/2021 at 1:37 PM, colinneil said:

I use concrete rings for growing veg, have done now for more than 4 years.

Put some dried leaves in the bottom, fill about 80  with soil, put in some cow manure, mix it in, no need to buy worms, they will soon find your rings, and  enjoy dining on the manure.

My wife is giving me so much grief about these rings ????

now she says the soil will get too hot inside the concrete rings and she’s got me thinking about that?

Ive never heard that complaint...but I’m new with this raised gardening!!

What do you think?

[colinneil]

10 minutes ago, Kanada said:

My wife is giving me so much grief about these rings ????

now she says the soil will get too hot inside the concrete rings and she’s got me thinking about that?

Ive never heard that complaint...but I’m new with this raised gardening!!

What do you think?

Well  mate, been using rings over six years, no problem with the soil getting hot.

As you can see by the photo i posted, i allow stuff to grow outside and behind the rings as shading from the sun

I also water them 2/3 times a day.

Edited May 20, 2021 by colinneil

[Kanada]

6 minutes ago, rickudon said:

 Ok, if you live at some altitude peas might work. Unfortunately Udon has a rather unforgiving climate. I have also  tried runner beans (just to see if they would work), broad beans, beetroot, carrots and spinach. Runner beans actually grew to my surprise, but flower set was zero. Died end of March with hot weather. Broad beans grew but fared even worse than the runners. Spinach is hard but was a success this year (once out of about 5!) Beetroot get roots some years (50/50) and carrots actually do quite well - have had up to 10 kilos but none once or twice.

 

Dwarf beans get 2 flushes if your lucky before death, Long beans do fine, but not keen on the taste. Swiss chard was a success this year. Bell peppers struggle (too hot), tomatoes good if you can get them to crop before April, after that disease and rotten fruit are big problems. Have grown a few potatoes, but crops very small. Sweet potato growing now. Okra does well. Grow cabbage when i can get it rather than the tough chinese kale.

 

Our soil is basically clay, so unworkable if too wet or too dry. Slowly adding sand to improve drainage, and making compost. Compost making is a struggle - My M-in-L has no idea, throws many grass sods with soil into the compost, turning it into a grass/weed factory. When the grass is cut, a race to get it first - she burns it and every dry leaf in sight. Such are the trials of gardening here!

My test hill potatoes were tiny basically unusable!

I have clay as well as we are in the mountains but I’ve found really good soil under big trees where leaves rot for years.

I added sand to one little plot and now it seems it that space always needs water (even tho’ things grow well there)

my wife knows a lot about plants but it’s info I seem to have to drag out of her (she’s Thai) but I listen as carefully as I can!!

I’m used to planning a garden...I know where everything is going before we go to the nursery but....

we just seem to plant willynilly  here.

Our green is doing so well that we are really low on color right now so everything and anything with bright color is welcome ????

[Kanada]

9 minutes ago, colinneil said:

Well  mate, been using rings over six years, no problem with the soil getting hot.

As you can see by the photo i posted, i allow stuff to grow outside and behind the rings as shading from the sun

I also water them 2/3 times a day.

I’ll take advice as Golden!

My wife said the same thing about growing some things around the rings as well but my point was we have the rings for easy access and I didn’t want to be worrying about stepping on plants while I work but I get the general idea !

im thinking of painting the rings white as well but I have zero experience with painting concrete!!

 

[recom273]

On 5/18/2021 at 12:30 PM, cooked said:

For larger surfaces I would bang in bamboo stakes every 40 - 50cm and then interweave with split bamboo, which looks quite nice. By the time they have rotted away (?three years) it'll be time to renew the soil. 

I never heard about the dangers of burying wood at the bottom, I only heard that it was very advantageous to do so, as their rotting provides nourishment  to the soil as well as drainage. Called Hugelkultur.

Some good ideas here, thanks all.

 

I have been growing chillis in these big plastic woven bags, I throw a load of sugar cane in the bottom to provide some bulk, it breaks down well. The sugar cane after they have crushed it for the juice by the side of the road.

 

The Thais around our way use it as mulch around tobacco plants. 

[cooked]

On 5/19/2021 at 10:54 AM, Kanada said:

Maybe the altitude up here but I had pretty good luck with both peas and Thai longbeans 2 years ago so I'll probably try again ????

Corn was looking good and then bugs got it really bad before I noticed so I gave it up....and I raised the worlds tiniest watermelon so wont be putting those in again.

Id love to try some pumpkins like we have back home (I dont even recognize these grown here) and some sunflowers that grow 8' high with the huge heads) but keeping it simple.

Also proper green onion sets....if I could find them! They are grown by the truckload commercially here In Samoeng as is garlic but they're different than I'm used to.

I took me some time to adjust to the fact that I was no longer living in a Swiss mountain village. I went through the same game: I wanted potatoes, broccoli, tomatoes, strawberries etc. I took me some time to realise that one of the plants I was weeding out was in fact Malabar spinach, that Pak choi is easy to grow and is eminently edible, Pak Bung is the easiest vegetable in the world to grow, we have bitter melons and ivy gourd looking after themselves, a couple of Moringa trees, Chaya ... all of which are of a different taste to what we are used to but which I can and do eat every day. We also have plenty of Turmeric, Ginger and Basil. 

As I say, it took me some time.  I gave up on melons (require too much pesticide), tomatoes. garlic and onions, even chili. 

[GreasyFingers]

1 hour ago, Kanada said:

my wife knows a lot about plants but it’s info I seem to have to drag out of her (she’s Thai) but I listen as carefully as I can!!

I’m used to planning a garden...I know where everything is going before we go to the nursery but....

we just seem to plant willynilly  here.

Same here. When we first bought the property I would clear a pathway through the weeds and rocks. Then the wife or FIL would plant something that would grow to a metre wide right next to the path and sometimes on it. It did make it easy for them to access.

[Kanada]

1 hour ago, recom273 said:

Some good ideas here, thanks all.

 

I have been growing chillis in these big plastic woven bags, I throw a load of sugar cane in the bottom to provide some bulk, it breaks down well. The sugar cane after they have crushed it for the juice by the side of the road.

 

The Thais around our way use it as mulch around tobacco plants. 

I don’t know why but Chili’s grow like weeds here on this land!

im not allowed to knock even one down...my guess is we have 20 plants with flowers right now...5 producing and 20 more waiting i. The wings!

our hired man is here to cut the grass on all the property (in this heat) and he’ll clip a good many of the small ones but they’ll be back...these are the little tiny green and red reeeeally hot ones!

The birds eat most of them (I was surprised) but plenty left for us and my wife’s 8 chili papaya salad ???? 

I can’t eat it...makes me cry!

sometimes when she’s cooking dinner inside the house and using chili’s the air is so acrid our eyes tear up and we splitter and laugh

I hear Chili’s are good for you