One of the things we like best about raised beds is the ability to work without having to bend down to or get down on the ground. As we get older, this becomes a much bigger issue. We have found that with a 2 foot high raised bed, we can bring a lawn chair up to the bed and work on it while seated. This allows us to spend more time working without tremendous discomfort or pain.
We use grow bags a lot. This year we have around 50 tomato plants in grow bags. We also have 44 potato plants in grow bags. The tomatoes are all indeterminate, so will climb. I am building a trellis system for them that will be 10′ tall. So aside from a little weeding in these bags, we shouldn’t need to get down to the ground for them. Having the bags on the ground will give the plants more room to grow up.
The potatoes are different. Having them raised up will make working with them easier. We saw a video from Hollis and Nancy’s Homestead who made some benches for their grow bags, and that seemed like a really good idea. We talked about several ways to make these, and where we were originally going to put them, the ground is very uneven. Some type of leveling leg would be necessary. Also a lot of ideas we’ve seen for these used lumber as the surface, like a slatted bench.
We recently saw another video from Salty Dawg Homestead where he used hardware cloth for the surface. The wire in these seemed heavier duty than the normal hardware cloth that we use, but I thought what we have should be sufficiently sturdy for this. It’s what I used on the sifting shaker table.
I decided to make these out of 2×4 lumber, 10 feet long. A simple frame with middle supports. I made the lateral supports 30″ long, so I could get 4 of them from one 2×4 with no waste. Similarly, I made the legs 24″ long so I could get 5 with no waste. The width works since the 10 gallon bags we use are 16″ in diameter, this allows 2 rows. The bags will be supported on two sides. Initially I mad them without the middle supports running the length, but when I put bags on it, it sagged pretty good in the middle.
Using 3′ wide hardware cloth allows for a 2″ overhang that is bent down and stapled to the sides. I used a pneumatic staple gun to drive 1/2″ narrow crown staples in to hold the cloth. They attach it very securely.
We made 3 of these benches.
Originally I was going to make adjustable legs to account for uneven ground. The ground here where we put them is fairly even, so after placing them, they looked pretty good.
We can fit 48 bags on these three tables. I’ll run a drip irrigation main line down the middle of these, and then run drip rings into the bags.
Come harvest time, this added height will make it a lot easier lifting the bags onto the shaker table. We can just roll it up next to the bench and lift the bag and dump it onto the deck.
Once this was complete, I added irrigation.
