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I’m trying to remember what on earth possessed me to put raised beds into the garden in the first place. Maybe a hankering for a little discipline which, if you’ve ever visited my garden, you’ll know is not the first word that springs out at you from the chaotic borders as you push your way along the path. Maybe I had the need of a self-contained DIY project, something I could put together over the weekend, something that would make a tangible, visible difference within a short space of time.
Whatever it was, in they went. Just a pair of them, with a neat little bark chipping path between and at the head. I even installed a tap for the watering can. The fact that I put weed control fabric down before raking the bark out should have been some kind of flag to me – I hate the stuff with a vengeance, and it proved just as counter-productive as it always does (subject for another rant at a later date) – I’m not sure quite who I was during this particular episode. All very out of character, but we need to remember that this was 2016. Trump was closing in on the US presidency, the Brexit vote was looming, celebrity icons were dying like living was going out of fashion and the world was really beginning to feel like it was spinning into the unknown. I’d clearly decided a little weed membrane and a couple of raised beds would help me hold it all together.
That I hadn’t intended the installation to last indefinitely is indicated by my decision to use tanalised gravel boards (lined with black plastic, I wasn’t wild about the wood preserver getting into our veg, but now I wonder if my subconscious has been yelling “WHAT ABOUT THE BPAs?!” at me for years) rather than something more permanent, like railway sleepers. I knew I’d get a good five years out of them before they collapsed one winter, at which point I could review the whole operation. We got about seven and a half, and here we are.
I’ve never been completely convinced by the concept of raised beds. No… actually, that’s not quite right. The concept is fine – a large, open-bottomed container providing a deep root run and close control over the growing medium while lending itself well to more formal styles of garden design, at the same time as offering solutions for winter flooding and issues of accessibility. It’s the ubiquity of its application that grates a bit – a versatile tool in several situations, rather than a Swiss Army Knife for any application. Of course you don’t need raised beds in order to grow veg, you can grow food in anything from a window box to an old boot (Claire Ratinon’s written a rather good book on the subject). Or, you know, the ground, should you be fortunate enough to have access to it. But you do find raised beds heading with ill-deserved confidence towards any conversation that might involve the setting up of a productive garden, and I often wonder why.
Other than that, as I’ve already alluded to, raised beds don’t really suit me. I am not That Kind of Gardener, at least, not here on my own plot and increasingly not for other people, either. I can appreciate the beauty in the disciplined rows of a well-tended kitchen garden, but the magic I’m drawn to exists around the plant that’s growing in spite of its surroundings; the wind blown pine on the crest of a hill, the delicate flower rooted into some crack in the pavement, drawing nourishment from fag butts, exhaust fumes and dog shit. (This, for the record, is probably why – and I hesitate to write this when so many good friends are hugely talented garden designers – I always gravitate towards the messy ‘before’ photo of the garden makeover, rather than the admittedly fabulous ‘after’ shot). I tell myself my food will taste better if it manages to grow in spite of the conditions in which it finds itself and, having me to tend to it, that sounds like challenge enough.
And so the raised beds are no more. I’ve hoiked out all the rotting timber, laid it in a pile beneath the hedge where the merry colony of woodlice its supports can continue with all that prehistoric scampering about and changing sex at the drop of a crustacean’s hat that woodlice seem to do. I’ve raked the soil out over the surrounding beds, relocated an artichoke, left the purple sage on the slight hill it seems reluctant to relinquish (I could enforce an eviction, but I’m firmly of their opinion that, through a combination of longevity and utility, some plants earn their position in the garden, and a level change is always a gift to the gardener). I’m planning what we’ll grow this year; more herbs (always more herbs), a lot of beetroot, purple sprouting broccoli, French beans over the arch and more salad than you can shake a leek at. Of course, there will be courgettes, and garlic, and probably shallots and celery and somewhere, carrots, because soffritto.
I’m purposefully embracing informality, and what I’ve already noticed is a lowering of the shoulders, a breathing out, a sigh of relief combined with an enthusiasm for what we’ll be growing this year that’s been strangely absent ever since we introduced those elevated timber restrictions. It’s – palpable – and it’s not just me; unprompted, Emma confessed to feeling something similar, too. We’re actively excited about growing things on the wonk.
So, yeah, raised beds aren’t for me. I was right all along. It’s nice to be vindicated, though the crowing is somewhat tempered by being the one who installed them in the first place, on the off chance I was wrong.
Ha ha. I LOVE a raised bed but like it best when the edge is proper thick, but I also love their fresh absence. Maybe, I wonder, is it the change we enjoy?
Ive just put eight in place and I fear that I am Not That Sort Of Gardener either but maybe I’ll become one. (Watch this space. Hahaha.)