Could the humble raised vegetable garden save the planet? Too many people see gardening as merely a past time for retired folk, but in the last few days I have had my eyes opened to the raw power of raised gardens.

In this article I want to explain why I am starting to believe that growing your own vegetables at home in a raised bed garden could help solve poverty, famine, heart disease, cancer, and even global warming. This might sound like a tall order, but hear me out.

The raison detre for a raised vegetable garden is that it lends itself to locations that don’t have the right kind of conditions for growing pretty much anything let alone luscious fruits and vegetables. Coupled with the fact that they require less weeding, this ancient gardening technique has the potential to empower the individual to produce their own nutritious food supply.

Whether they know it or not, just about everybody on the planet is in great need of this level of freshness in their veggies. It is nothing less than a life saver because your vegetables are far more delicious than the tasteless ones in the supermarket, so you eat more of them.

Raised vegetable gardens are helping people in certain parts of Africa to get out of poverty and famine. The charity “Send a Cow” has been teaching people how they can grow vegetables in areas that were thought impossible. Rocky terrains and hard cracked soils are no problem for a raised bed, as all that is really needed is a good source of sunlight.

However, in developed countries it could be argued that there is just as greater need for such a life-saving intervention. Heart disease and cancer have become such a huge problem in developed countries, and scientists are placing most of the blame on our junk food diets. Although, it is not a popular belief, it is probably true that the developed world has just as large a malnutrition problem as any other part of the world. Yet, with the right mindset this problem could be greatly alleviated with a raised garden.

Perhaps the most important thing I want to explain about growing your own vegetables is how it could help avert catastrophic climate change.

For the average individual, a very significant portion of their carbon footprint comes from food miles. In other words, most food in the supermarket has been transported from several thousand miles away in order to reach the store. The pollution that this creates is monumental, but at the time of writing it is pretty much ignored by everyone.

My favourite thing about the raised vegetable garden is that you can have a free, and endless supply of amazingly delicious vegetables, without impacting the environment at all.

If you were to compare supermarket fruit and veg to the stuff you can grow in your own backyard, on taste alone you would never go back to your store again. Freshly picked ripe produce is at least 10 times more tasty. This factor should be enough to convince most people to invest the small effort required. However, when you factor in the other massive benefits then it’s really a no-brainer.

Don’t delay, it’s easier than ever to start your own raised bed garden. In this blog you will find the very best information collected from around the web to help you get started with your own raised vegetable bed.

photo: flickr.com/photos/adamraoof

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Go here for your answer (it is to long to type here):

http://www.gardeningknowhow.com/problems/what-causes-bitter-cucumber.htm/print/

I want to build a raised bed garden, but I am doing it on a shoestring (no actual money, just a nasty old shoestring). I am looking for at least 140 linear feet of material. The wall will be around 10 inches tall, so it should be something that can either be easily cut down with normal tools, or that can be stacked that high somehow. The material shouldn’t leach any toxic whateverz into the soil, as the plants will be vegetables.

Thanks guys!

I use old tanks from an out-of-business seafood store. The drains mean a ready-made drainage system, and I didn’t even bother to clean the insides, since the fish waste makes good fertilizer.

Plus, they’re up on legs, about waist-high, making it easier to work ‘em, especially for my sweetie, who has physical problems and doesn’t bend over so easily.

Eight bucks apiece plus twenty dollars to a fella with a pickup truck to bring them to my house.
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It would be better to plant only 2, possibly 3 if the soil is well amended, of the large indeterminate plants in a bed that size. You could plant 2 – 5 determinate types depending on whether planting cultivars that grow large or those that are bred to grow in pots like some of the "patio" tomato cultivars.

You will not get a better yield of tomatoes by planting more than the optimal number of plants in that space but less.

Even a single well-grown and cared for tomato plant can yield more than enough fruit for 2 people to use for salad or slicing.

Although it’s now autumn where you live, you can follow this guide:

http://www.palmers.co.nz/gardening_calendar/march.cfm

It is from New Zealand, so the seasons are six months out. September is our spring, so you can follow the March instructions, which is our autumn.

Probably carrots, lettuce, and beetroot are going to be the quickest growing, but you can find varieties of pretty much anythign that will perform quickly.