Raised bed gardening / Vrt s podignutim gredicama

This year we (my boyfriend and I) decided to make something new with our garden. We've been growing our own vegetables for the last 4 years, since we moved from our hometown to countryside. We always did it same, usual way, planted everything in the backyard. But this year we decided to try something new.  Something new, in our case is raised bed gardening. In our yard we have foundation for and old stale that was unused and we didn’t know what to do with it. So, my better half decided it's the perfect place to make this year’s garden. It has plenty of sun and its close to house so it seems a good location. So... how do you do raised bed garden? Well it's easy but you sure have to prepare yourself to some work. We used old wooden beams and bricks to crate beds. But they had to be filled with some soil so my darling one went to our neighbor place and got some soil from his yard where he keeps the sheep. It should be perfect when it’s mixed with soil from our garden. So far we planted tomatoes and some green salad seeds for which we made some sort of hothouse – we used glass parts of an old refrigerator, so my seeds can grow faster.

But we’re not yet done. We have to plant paprika, salads, cucumbers, carrots and some others, but at least we started with this year garden project.  Now you’re wondering how to make raised bed garden? Pretty easy (at least some parts of it). You basically build an open bottomed and open topped box, and you can make it in any shape you want (play with your raised bed garden like we did). You can use any material that will hold dirt together like lumber, bricks, rocks… really anything, but most preferred, easiest and efficient method is using lumber. When you decide where your raised bed garden will be, be sure to clean the place from weeds. Then simply take wood (you can use old pallets or some other kind, depending on what you prefer), dig out the holes for the corner post. You can simply place on top of the soil or you can root them in the ground several centimeters, decide what’s best for you. We couldn’t root them in because we did it on old foundation. After that you just make your raised bed as you want it to look like, build it up (you can use screwdrivers to make it more secure, but you don’t have to – we didn’t do it). On the bottom part we put some rocks and sand for drainage and then we covered it with soil.

You should consider using at least 30% of compost, and here’s advice for moneysaving. You can cut costs up to 50% or more by using some soil from other parts of your garden, and if you have animals (chickens, sheep, cows ) here’s your perfect compost. We used mixture of soil from our garden and one from sheep’s yard. You can also put some weed cloth on the bottom to prevent weeds from growing from below.  You should put soil up to some 5 centimeters from the top of your raised bed. Water it well, and there you have it. You can now plant anything in your raised beds. And I mean really anything – from vegetables, herbs to flowers. If you choose vegetables you should know its excellent choice for growing carrots, onions, radishes, beets, green salad and tomatoes.  If you wish you could also turn your raised bed, into a mini greenhouse. Good thing about them is that plants in raised beds may be spaced a little closer together and growing your vegetables this way allows longer growing season. For the end, one thing you should keep in mind when you build raised beds - build them so that you're able to reach every part of the bed without having to stand in it, it will make your gardening much easier and cleaner.

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Ove godine smo ( moj dečko i ja ) odlučili napraviti nešto novo s vrtom. Svoje povrće uzgajamo zadnje četiri godine, otkako smo se preselili na selo. I uvijek smo to radili na isti, uobičajen način, koji bi se mogao nazvati klasičnim vrtlarenjem. No, ove godine odlučili smo pokušati nešto novo . Nešto novo , u našem slučaju su podignute gredice. U dvorištu imamo neiskorišteni temelj stare staje, s kojim sve ove godine ni sami nismo znali što ćemo. I tako je moja bolja polovica odlučila da je to idealno mjesto za ovogodišnji vrt. Tijekom cijelog dana ima dosta sunca, a i blizu je kuće, pa nam se temelj učinio idealnim mjestom za naše podignute gredice. Pitate se kako napraviti takav tip vrta? Sve u svemu nije pretjerano teško, no ipak se pripremite na posao. Mi smo koristili stare drvene grede i cigle kako bismo izgradili gredice.Kako se one moraju ispuniti zemljom, moj dragi je iskoristio zemlju iz susjedovog vrta u kojem on čuva ovce, a pomiješana sa zemljom iz našeg vrta činit će savršeno tlo za povrće. Do sada smo zasadili rajčice i zelenu salatu za koju smo izradili neku vrstu staklenika – koristili smo staklene dijelove starog hladnjaka, tako da moje sjeme može brže rasti . Ali još nismo gotovi. Moramo zasaditi papriku , salatu, krastavce , mrkvu i neke druge vrste, ali barem smo započeli s ovogodišnjim vrtnim projektom . Sada se pitate kako izgraditi podignute gredice? Sve je prilično jednostavno (barem neki dijelovi ). Trebate izraditi okvir s otvorenim gornjim i donjim dijelom, a oblik vam može biti oblika kojeg sami želite (igrajte se s podignutim gredicama kao što smo i mi). Možete koristiti bilo koji materijal koji će dobro držati zemlju, kao što su drvo , cigle , kamenje ... Većina se odlučuje za drvo jer se ono pokazalo kao najbolja i najučinkovitija metoda. Kada se odlučite gdje će gredice biti, očistite mjesto od korova. Uzmite svoje drvene dijelove (možete koristiti i palete ili neku drugu vrstu drvenog materijala, ovisno o tome što vam je draže ), i iskopajte rupe za kutne dijelove. Možete ih jednostavno staviti I na površinu tla ili ih ukopati nekoliko centimetara, prema vlastitim željama. Mi ih nismo mogli ukopati jer smo gredice gradili na starom temelju. Također, dijelove možete i pričvrstiti vijcima kako biste konstrukciju učinili sigurnijom ali I ne morate – mi nismo. Na dno gredica stavili smo kamenčiće i pijesak za drenažu i sve dobro prekrili zemljom.

Razmislite o korištenju najmanje 30% komposta , a evo i savjeta za uštedu. Troškove možete smanjiti i do 50 % ili više ako koristite tlo iz drugih dijelova svog vrta, ako imate životinje ( kokoši , ovce, krave ) imate I savršen compost. Mi smo koristili mješavinu zemlje iz našeg vrta i dio iz dvorišta u kojem. Gredice trebate ispuniti zemljom do nekih 5 centimetara od vrha. Dobro zalijte i vaše gredice su gotove. Sada u njih možete posaditi što god želite. I stvarno tako mislim - od povrća, ljekovitog bilja do cvijeća . Ako se odlučite za povrće trebate znati das u podignute gredice idealne za uzgoj mrkve , luka, rotkvica , repe, zelene salate i rajčice. Ako želite možete ih također lako pretvoriti i u mini staklenik . Dobra stvar kod podignutih gredica je da biljke u njima mogu biti zbijenije, a sadnja u njima omogućuje i duži period vegetacije . Na kraju , jedna stvar koju biste svakako trebali imati na umu kad gradite podignute gredice – pokušajte ih izgraditi tako da ne hodate po zemlji već oko nje, to će učiniti vaše vrtlarenje čišćim, a samim time i zabavnijim.