January to April is a great time for garden preparation and I’m truning my garden over to a permaculture design. I’m building a made-from-mostly-found-parts polytunnel which will have two 20 foot long beds inside it – and a number of beds outside in the garden.

Shall I build raised beds? What are the pros and cons?

Should I stick to normal beds? What are the pros and cons?

We are just doing the same thing! But our polytunnel is much smaller.

I think we will go for raised beds becuause it is very near our modern house and there is builders rubble in the ground. A raised bed will allow us to import some decent soil.

We built some raised beds when we created a small veg patch on some old rubble at the back of the garden and they’ve worked a treat.  A couple of weeks ago I dug up half our lawn to create more space for veg growing, but in this case I just dug them into the ground as hopefully the soil underneath should be fine…I’ll have to wait and see.

I’m no expert, but I thought raised beds are only really needed when you need to ‘import’ some better quality soil.

Raised beds can also be used for purposes other than importing better soil. For example:

- a high raised bed avoids too much bending (and the lower part can be a good place to hide rubble from other parts of the garden

- they can give a very structured organisation to the garden, without fuzzy margins continually developing between beds, paths and grass

- the structures can also have other purposes, such as securing netting and plant supports

- a bed could be raised enough to capture more light on the plants, especially in a garden that is overshadowed by walls and fences

Wulf