Greetings from my home foodscape. With each passing a day a new social media awareness campaign is created, and to do my part I am sticking to educating people on how to grow food in a practical, abundant way. That is what FOODSCAPING is all about- making the most of your existing landscape! Really I am a farmer, but without a tractor or a field I have to be creative with how I cultivate my suburban land, with the goal of growing REAL FOOD that can really play a role in my families daily diet. Foodscaping is a lifestyle, because once you start you realize you don’t want to ever stop! It has made me a better gardener, a more thoughtful consumer and most importantly has opened my eyes to more effective ways to steward land.

Blissfully skipping through my spring foodscape in 2019… soon this border will erupt into bloom again, providing nourishment for pollinators and people! LEARN HOW TO CREATE THIS

When I started growing food for myself it was out of NECESSITY. I was HUNGRY and had a landscape that could offer me more than “green meatballs and open mulch space”. Frankly most of the landscapes I see are AWFUL and WE SHOULD BE ASHAMED for devoting resources for managing uninspired, PURPOSELESS spaces. I have been frustrated for a long time and yes, I am using this platform as an opportunity to RAISE THE BAR! We can do so much better.

My local Goodwill… What is the point of this???? Open mulch areas that will have to get sprayed with herbicide ALL THE TIME and shrubs that have to be sheared constantly. WHAT IS THIS ACCOMPLISHING???? NOTHING is the answer!

The same can be said for those who think the only way you can grow food is by investing in lumber. THIS IS NOT TRUE! Here’s the thing, EVERY sunny landscape in the world can be cultivated for food production. Regardless of your soil quality- that can be fixed! Regardless of your mammal browse issues- which we all have so stop whining! (I will be posting a blog and webinar on this subject soon.) Start thinking more critically about the space you already have around your house. I promise there is an opportunity to grow something you love to eat right alongside your roses, azaleas, camellias and more!

Okay, I am going to take on a controversial subject- raised beds. Remember this is MY BLOG and I am writing from MY EXPERIENCES, and I haven’t had the greatest success rate with traditional approaches to vegetable gardening. If you have ever heard one of my presentations you know my motto is “Foodscaping”, aka incorporating edibles into the ornamental landscape to make better use of open areas in convenient to manage locations. But, like most people, I started off as a “raised bed” vegetable gardener.

At some point over the past 30 years, home gardeners got brainwashed into believing the only way to grow food crops was to first invest in lumber. Obviously, this is great for companies that sell wood, but often folks blow their budget on the least necessary materials and then cut corners when it comes to buying quality plants and compost, namely Soil3. The idea that you need lumber to create a “raised bed” it totally untrue. If you don’t want to deal with your native soil, simply mound compost on top of the ground and get busy planting! Ta-da- you have a raised bed!

Before I make you feel bad, I am not saying you need to tear out your existing boxed beds. Honestly, we have ALL had them at some point and time. However, I would like to make the case for why you should not build anymore, especially now with resources in short supply! And you can watch me remove my last two raised beds earlier this season.

All the points I am sharing are reflections of my own circumstance and experience. I share these life lessons in hopes of helping others, who like me, want to cultivate a garden but not spend all their time and money doing it!

1) EXPENSIVE- Looking at the big picture, a few hundred dollars spent on lumber may not be a lot, but for many, that expense is beyond our budget. When I first bought a house, I was constantly facing unaccounted expenses. Everything from curtain rods to shower rings adds up fast and I simply didn’t have the extra funds to buy wood to build beds.

2) CARPENTRY KNOW HOW & TOOLS- In addition to not having much of a garden budget I also lacked basic carpentry experience and the necessary tools for building and installing big wooden boxes. Not to mention that I drove a small car. How would I even get the wood home?

3) LACK AESTHETIC QUALITIES - Most of the boxed beds that I have seen are not well maintained. Meaning, the wood was not stained or painted and over time it rots away.

ONE EXCEPTION- Joe Lamp’l! Joe has the only raised bed “farm” that I consider to be inspiring. His boxed beds are exceptional, made of cedar and built high enough to serve as a bench for garden visitors. His beds are spaced on a grid and have a charming fence surrounding the area to help keep browsing mammals away. Everything about Joe’s set up is beautiful. But as I said already, most people do not build their beds to his standards. Instead, these square or rectangular oddities get plopped into the middle of a lawn with no regard to design. I can totally see why an HOA would get offended by someone ripping out their front lawn and replacing it with strange wooden boxes full of annual vegetables that generally look messy. Frankly, this is an assault on the profession of landscape design.

4) DIFFICULT TO MAINTAIN AROUND- Often people build two raised beds. In the process they forget one simple thing- spacing. Sighted too close together they can’t get a lawn mower between them and suddenly what seemed like a good idea proves to be BAD. But even in the cases where they are spaced appropriately mowing around 90-degree angles is hard. Let’s face it, no one wants to spend all their free time using a weed whacker.

5) WOOD ROTS- Hopefully if you have built raised beds for vegetable production you knew to buy untreated lumber. But the disadvantage of that is simple- it rots! Especially here in the southeast where it is hot, humid, rainy and we have termites. Most of the boxed beds that I have seen have not been painted or stained, which would help slow the decomposition process. If you really want to make your raised beds last, ditch the lumber and use cinder blocks. At least cinder block will retain heat, helping create a micro climate for winter gardeners, and you can get really create painting or adding a tile mosaic that will last for years and really up the “wow factor”!

6) LOCATION- Full sun, well-drained soil, easy access to water that see you EVERYDAY are the most important factors for successful gardening. So, are your raised beds REALLY in the ideal location? Do you walk past them when you get into your car? Or, are they somewhere in the back 40? From my own experience, locating your edibles in the most visible places of your landscape really will lead to success. It is simple- you see them. You notice when the plants are dry or have ripe fruit. It isn’t a chore to tend them when they are along your normal walking path. In contrast, when you have beds in a part of your yard that isn’t frequently visited, your food crops will suffer.

7) WATER WATER WATER- The taller your raised bed is, the more water you will need to apply. It is a simple function of gravity and drainage. I like a taller raised bed because at least it gives you some place to sit, however those ergonomic solutions will lead to a lot more water usage.

8) FIRE ANTS- Have you ever noticed how many fire ant mounds appear after a rain? They move up as the ground gets saturated and raised beds are their favorite place to populate! I learned this the hard way. Fifty bites and two swollen arms later I ran to retrieve the ant bait and gave up my dreams of organic gardening. As did my neighbors who had their entire raised bed fill with fire ants following hurricane rains last summer. They literally “gave up” trying to even harvest late season tomatoes and peppers due to the aggressive ants that took over their growing space.

9) CROP ROTATION- This should seem obvious, but it often is not taken seriously. To maintain a productive garden space, you have to rotate your crops each season to ensure that problem insects and diseases don’t build up in the soil. The problem with raised beds is that you have limited square footage to rotate in making it nearly impossible to follow this approach effectively.

10) MONO-CULTURE PLANTING- This is the main reason I want to encourage you to get away from boxed bed planting. Food crops do not represent much biological diversity. I am specifically referring to how many different plant families are included your veggie garden. Most of us plant tomatoes, peppers, eggplants and potatoes… we think they are all different, but they are all in the nightshade, or Solanaceae family. So, biologically they have the same pest and diseases. By isolating them in one concentrated area you are creating a mono-culture and should expect all the problems that go along with that practice.

Did you know that home gardeners generally only plant food crops from 4 plant families? It’s true! Through the cool season we plant veggies from the Amaranthaceae family, thanks to Swiss chard, and the Brassicaeae family which includes, Broccoli, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Collards, Kale and Mustard. Through the heat of the summer we indulge in beans, all in the Fabaceae family and the traditional nightshade crops.

Before you get too mad at me, please know I am writing with good intentions to make your gardening experience as beautiful and bountiful as possible. My goal as a horticulture professional is to encourage EVERYONE TO GROW SOMETHING, whether it is in the house, in the ground or even in a traditional raised bed. But I do hope to inspire you to think “outside the box” with some creative alternatives that just may prove to be better! Wishing you all the best in these truing time. Please stay safe, stay healthy and STAY HOME!!! Plant some seed and grow the food you love to eat!