Where Oh Where to Grow? Raised Beds, Pots, Planters, and Down in the Ground
I’ve received a couple inquiries thus far about growing
vegetables in pots, depths for preparing soil, and building raised beds. Especially a few about the raised beds
including what the dimensions need to be, what materials can you make them out
of, etc. So I decided to just make a post
addressing what and where to plant your vegetables and flowers.
When setting up your garden and planting anything you should
be mindful of what you are planting and Google is of course a great resource to
get tips about planting depths, spacing, and soil preparation. At my house I have two decent sized raised
beds that I use for all sorts of vegetables, old tires on the ground filled with
dirt, pots galore, old rain basins filled with dirt and half buried in the
ground, several planting boxes I use for herbs, tables covered with bowls of
dirt, seed trays, and starter pots, and many spaces in my back yard where I
grow local vegetables right in the ground or have groupings of small tree
seedlings in planting bags. Luckily for
me I have the advantage of owning a decent sized property along with my wife
and I have the luxury of letting my gardening habit (addiction?) spread out. However, having all these different methods
for planting and having used many others in the past I’ve hopefully got a good
grasp of what grows well in what.
Growing in the Ground
Most local vegetables like Ong Hoy (aka draguen, morning
glory, water spinach), Chinese Kale, Asian Pumpkins, lemon grass, etc. will grow just fine in the ground. These vegetables are easy to find at the
market for the simple reason that they grow well here. And because they grow so well there is very
little you need to do to grow them at home in whatever patch of dirt you have
available other than just add some amendments to the dirt and let the plants do
their thing.
So once you have your patch of ground it’s a good idea to
break it up and mix in some nutrient rich compost, manure, or even some burnt
rice husk before attempting to plant.
As a child it was
always my job multiple times a year to turn over my mother’s garden and mix in
manure and fertilizer. At the time I had
a pet rabbit and it was only long after I’d grown up that I discovered that
rabbit manure is considered the second best natural fertilizer in the world, the
first is bat guano which you can buy by the bagful out near Phnom Sampoev in
case you’re interested. But when I found
that info out it suddenly made sense why we had such amazing, huge, juicy, and delicious
tomatoes in our garden every year. I’d
take a shovel and dig up a line of dirt, drop down the manure, then dig another
line and toss the dirt from the new line on top of the manure. I’d repeat this process back and forth
through the whole garden until it was ready to go.
Turning your dirt before planting is essential as dirt down
on the ground can become extremely compact, and with the heavy amounts of clay
in the area it can seem almost rock hard.
Turning it helps to mix in valuable nutrients, improves water drainage,
and aerates the soil. Loose dirt allows
for good root growth which leads to stronger and healthier plants that will be
less susceptible to pests and diseases.
Once the dirt is loosened up and mixed just go ahead and plant your
seeds.
The main downside to planting on the ground is that because
of the clay in our soil and the high water table, many plants will not get the
drainage necessary for good growth.
Garden spaces down on the ground also tend to get a lot more grass and
weeds that you’ll need to be bending over to pull out. Plants on the ground also run the risk of
getting trampled by people and animals.
Raised Beds
This is probably the section I think most people are
interested in. Raised beds offer a lot
of advantages to gardeners in that drainage is improved, your plants are up off
the ground so they’re less likely to be trampled and are easier to weed, the
dirt settles less so it is easier to turn over, and others that I could keep
listing for several pages. The only real
downsides to a raised bed are that your space in which to garden has definite
limits and that with improved drainage, nutrients will also gradually be washed
out with regular watering and rain. The
flipside to nutrients being washed out though is that you can more easily wash
out salts or unwanted minerals from your soil in raised beds.
The only real requirement of a raised bed is a border to
contain your garden soil. So raised beds
can be made out of nearly anything although I recommend rocks, bricks, plastic,
or something non-biodegradable. Many
beds in North America and Europe are made from wood boxes or boards close the
ground. However, most wood in Cambodia
is not properly weather treated and so wood down on the ground and in close
contact with your soil will rot out and fall apart eventually and you’ll need
to rebuild or replace your raised beds. A
few years back I helped build a raised bed with old wood floorboards, but it
rotted out and in less than a year the sides gave way and collapsed. My philosophy is that whatever is cheapest
and sturdy is the way to go. Vegetables
don’t care how pretty the space they grow in is.
The height you want to build to may also affect the
materials you use for your raised bed. If
the main thing you want to grow is leafy greens then really you won’t need more
that about 6 inches or 15 centimeters of dirt.
For this you could use some heavy logs, big rocks, or a few old bricks. Just lay it all down close together in the
general shape of where you want to grow and fill it up with garden soil.
However, if you want to grow plants that put down deeper
roots like carrots, tomatoes, onions, or beets you’ll need a much taller raised
bed. My beds at home are made out of old
bricks, concrete fenceposts, and chunks of random concrete recycled from years
ago when we knocked over an old outhouse and a shed on our property. I built them up about 50 centimeters in
rectangles about 2 meters long and around 70 centimeters wide. In retrospect I would make them a little
larger, but once you’ve lifted all that into place you do not want to take it
apart again. Even if the stacked
materials are a little loose, once you fill it all with dirt and start watering
it, mud will start working its way into the cracks and act as a sort of glue or
mortar to hold it all in place.
To fill it up I filled the bottom third with broken coconut
husks to help ensure good drainage and then layered in regular dirt, compost,
burnt rice husk, and a few bags of potting mix from the plant stores. Before planting I usually take a small shovel
and turn over the top 15-20 centimeters and mix in fresh compost. Because the soil is far less compacted in
raised beds this job gets done very quickly and without too much exertion.
If you have limited space, a concrete surface, or if your
only place to grow is on your rooftop you can also make a raised bed system
with recycled Styrofoam crates. Since
those are not biodegradable, turning them into a garden is a good way to
recycle something that would otherwise end up in a trash fire somewhere. Those are usually what fruit and seafood are
shipped in on their way to Battambang and a lot of older ones that are too
dirty or have small holes or chunks missing from the edges end up destined for
the garbage heap. Ask a market vendor if
they have any they want to get rid of, if you can’t get them free the most you
should have to pay for them is $1 each, any more and I guarantee they are
trying to cheat you.
Several years ago at my NGO we built a whole backyard garden
with those crates because we work with street kids who live at the railroad station
or in slums by the river and wanted to teach them that no matter where they
lived it is possible to grow their own fresh, healthy vegetables. We filled them with regular dirt and burnt
rice husk and it was a rousing success!
We grew snake beans, cabbages, leafy greens, Ong Hoy, and herbs galore.
Other ideas for raised beds include plastic storage
containers partially buried in the ground or just old tires sitting on the
ground. Tires are especially good for
growing melons in as generally you need to plant on mounds and let the vines
spread out, but mounds gradually flatten out over time so the tires keep just the
right amount of dirt for melons in place.
If you are planning on growing in a raised bed, get online
and look for a book called Square Foot Gardening. There is an e-copy available and it is
chock-full of helpful tips about growing in raised beds. Info about subdividing it, what vegetables
can be grown together in close proximity, watering methods, etc.
Growing in Pots
There isn’t much to say about growing in pots that is
different from growing in raised beds.
Basically a pot is a smaller, more easily moved form of a raised
bed. The biggest upsides to growing in
pots are that you can grow almost anywhere, you can move them and rearrange
your garden as needed, and if you move houses you can just pick up the garden
and take it with you. The downsides are
that you have limited space to grow in, soil temperatures will fluctuate much
more in pots, and because some are rather deep you end up using a lot more soil
than is needed for some vegetables.
The best plants and vegetables for growing in pots are
generally plants with deeper roots and which grow vertically. Bell peppers, chili peppers, tomatoes, okra, parsley,
onions, and garlic can be good candidates for vegetables to grow in pots. Flowers often grow better in pots because
they are more easily cared for and with more sensitive plants you can easily
move the pots to the ideal location depending on what season it is and how much
sun the plants need. Leafy greens like
lettuce and spinach can be grown in pots, but because of a lack of space it is
harder to make well spaced rows and you might not get more than a single salad
from one pot. Herbs also do well in pots
but because herbs and many leafy greens don’t have deep roots you end up with a
lot of unused soil down in the bottom.
If you are growing leafy greens or herbs I suggest you fill
the bottom third or half of your pot, depending on its size, with a mix of
coconut husk and gravel as filler so that you have good drainage in the bottom
and some weight to keep the pot stable.
That way you don’t need nearly so much dirt to fill it, especially if
you are shelling out for potting mix and not making your own garden soil.
Other Planters
Necessity is the Mother of Invention. As I said before, plants don’t care how
pretty the space is they grow in, as long as it is comfortable the plant it
will grow. Now you may care about the look
of the planter, especially for decorative plants and flowers, but otherwise if
it will hold dirt you can make a planter out of it.
I’ve concocted all sorts of planting areas around my
home. The most prominent of which is my
herb and seed table. I concocted the
design and had a local welder put together a special table I use for my
gardening. On one side it has a frame
which supports 5 long rectangular planting boxes I use for herbs where I often grow
various forms of basil, dillweed, cilantro, and oregano. The other half is just a flat surface but I
usually have seed trays for starting tomatoes, peppers, or flowers, small pots
for herbs I’m hoping to eventually sell, and regular plastic kitchen bowls I
use as communal pots for starting tree seeds like limes, oranges, and palms. At other times I’ve used the bowls for herbs
as well.
I also have a few long steel trays that were made from old
biscuit tins that I’ve hung on the wall and use for growing additional herbs
that I’m interested in. These are
readily available at many shops over on Tuol Ta Ek Road for relatively cheap
and don’t necessarily need to be hung up like I’ve done. They can sit on tables or down on the ground,
however, anything you grow in these will likely need a lot of water, not just
because they’ll dry out quickly, but their size and being made of metal will
make them heat up more than other planters if they are out in the sun. Thus you’ll need to add plenty of moisture when
its hot and sunny to prevent the soil temperature from fluctuating too
much. Recurring large changes in the
temperature of your soil can be extremely detrimental to the health of some
plants.
Other planters I’ve made use of include concrete pots and
boxes I buy from the concrete businesses out in Rattanak Commune, near the
Battambang Police Offices. These are
much more decorative and heavy so I use them more for decorative plants than
anything edible.
I also have a whole lot of old rain water basins (bien in
Khmer) that I’ve repurposed for gardening.
While they might not be the cheapest option if buying them new, old ones
often have small cracks and leaks and are typically just left sitting around
the house, mostly useless with mosquitos proliferating in them, and thus are
ideal for turning into planters. I have
two that I use for making compost in, and I will gladly explain in another post
eventually how I do it, and another half dozen I have scattered around my house
for plants that put down deep roots but need well draining soil. Generally I end up using them for climbing
vines of different types.
To make use of these you will want to bury them partially in
the ground for stability because in order to get good drainage and let some
plant roots keep going down you’ll want to knock out the bottoms. Once you’ve sunk the basins down into the ground
and filled in the outer hole with dirt you will want to take a good heavy
hammer and just smash the flat bottom of the basin. Lift out the the chunks of concrete and fill
the basin up with a mix of dirt, compost, coconut husks, rice husks, and/or
manure. I also generally pour a bag or
two of potting mix onto the top as the last layer for good measure before
planting.
You can use these as a decorative planter for various trees
or like me use them for vines. This
planter is advantageous for vines because many vines need to put down fairly
deep roots in order to pull up sufficient water and nutrients and keep sending
it up through the skinny and sprawling tendrils. Vines generally are not fond of dense clay
soils because it takes much longer for the roots to penetrate down deep through
the hard, compact soil. At present I’m
using two for passion fruit vines and have three others I’m working on in which
I intend to grow hops vines. The more
quickly your vines can put down deep roots the sooner you’ll start seeing
flowers and fruit on them.
Lastly, you can grow many plants in planting bags. I have a space behind my house I call the
Tree Coral because it is packed full of seedlings in planting bags just waiting
for the day they’ll end up in the ground.
The advantages of planting bags are that they are cheap, come in almost
any size you could possibly need, and they are ideal for plants which you will
eventually need to transplant. When
transplanting, many plants will suffer from transplant shock when their roots
are disturbed too much during the move.
Any time you expose a bare root while transplanting you are likely to
shock your plant. When transplanting
from a small pot to a bigger pot often you really need to jostle the plant to
get it out of the pot and the soil may crumble apart as you are moving the
plant.
Hopefully this explains some of your many options for
planting vegetables, trees, and flowers.
In general you can get pretty creative though with your materials and
what you grow in your planting spaces. The
only rule is that it needs to hold dirt.
Once you’ve got dirt you can start growing something!
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