Thread: raised beds
View Single Post
Old 01-20-2008, 05:14 PM   #8 (permalink)
CookieCows
Member
 
CookieCows's Avatar
 
Location: Kentucky
Zone: 6-7
Name: Deb
Join Date: Dec 2007
Posts: 1,182
BananaBucks : 71,580
Feedback: 3 / 100%
Said "Thanks" 1,347 Times
Was Thanked 696 Times in 393 Posts
Said "Welcome to Bananas" 159 Times
Default Re: raised beds

Originally Posted by bencelest
Quote:
One drawback of using Christmas lights:One of my neighbors asked me one day why I had Christmas lights on in my backyard way past Christmas time. (LOL).
That is so funny! Our neighbors can't see us so we could get away with it.

I have a couple questions...The area we're working with for the raised bed can be as wide as we want but I'm thinking of keeping it about 4' wide. Right now it's a mound with junipers that extends about 40 feet that we want to change into a raised bed for tropicals using large rocks for the walls we can get pretty cheap from a quarry. I'm struggling with the soil. Should I try to transform the existing soil which is cheap top soil that was trucked in by dump truck or dig it out and buy new soil in bags and mix up the same composition as for pots. Obviously if I go the route of digging it all out I won't be able to afford the soil mix for the entire length all at once which is ok... we'd just extend as far as we can and then do more next year.

Originally Posted by Richard
Quote:
As for heating cables in a raised bed, my thought was to embed them in the walls of the planter which would be constructed with some insulating material.
My next question is what kind of insulating material were you planning to use to build your walls?

The last question is that our bed will be aprox. 24" deep with bedrock at the bottom. Does that make a difference in what we'll be dealing with come winter as far as ground temp.? Does it mean that it might not retain the heat as well? I'm leaving out any thoughts of burying a heating element right now. I don't want to get into all that if we don't have to. I'm only going to put the hardiest tropicals into the ground and the two fruiting banana's I'll leave in pots to bring in the house in winter. Any ideas of the best way to go about this will be greatly appreciated!
Deb
__________________

CookieCows is offline   Reply With Quote Send A Private Message To CookieCows