Journey through the Investigation of
Raised Bed Garden Systems
Direction:
Create a
journal stating the problems, solutions, and insights involving the raised bed
garden systems.
The start of
this journey has already turned left at the water system. The first iteration
highlighted a major problem. When you build a raised bed you separate the
natural soil cycle and created no more than a large, glorified flower pot. There
is also a problem with watering – the norm is to water too little. This causes the roots of the plants to grow
at the surface.
Isn’t it
wonderful to have a glorified pot and create a system that when you forget to
water one day you have killed everything? Worry not - this is the start of the
journey not the end.
To start this
journey, I am going to have to take you through what I have learned of how soil
acts in relationship to the plant. Please understand that this is the beginning,
and as such there is value in being wrong several times until one is finally
right.
Chapter
One:
Soil
Love It or Get Dirty:
Modified soil
based Raised Bed
|
Normal Raised Bed
|
The first bed
shows water in its cycle of life. This is the typical raised bed; just like the
one I was going to build at first. The thickness of arrows shows how the water
cycle will leach out. What I did not realize at first is that this isn’t just
losing some water, but it is leaching the soil of its nutrients.
In the cycle of soil life there are bonds that
hold the world together. These bonds are bacterial and chemical in nature. Ways
to break those bonds include dilution and pressure or chemically changing the
PH balance. Watering is actually easier to explain if you look at it as a hydraulic
press. The water pushes down and is weighted by other water behind it taking O2
into the soil, this also changes the PH in the soil. This PH influx appears to
be one of the most important aspects of a healthy soil.
When you wash a liquid through a medium that
has a different PH you cause a chemical action. This is the action that
nitrogen, phosphorous and others depend on. This allows the normal electrolysis
or chemical reactions to occur. This is the only way that microorganisms and organics
will get the nutrients’ they need.
The problem that I have discovered is that by
building the typical raised bed you are offering an off-ramp for the surface water
(water applied to the surface and not given time to react with the soil) to
drain out. This is one of the large problems, I suspect, seen in a green house.
Water is applied to plants. The water
rushes through the plant medium and chemicals fall out as waste product and
causes a bio hazard of sorts. In the raised bed, it is pressed out the sides by
the weight of other water coming in.
Now that I
have sounded like I am against raised beds, I’m not. One of the problems in a
normal garden when you look at it as a system is that over 50% of the used
surface is not in use on the top side. In field applications, rows are closed
in as close as possible to stop this waste. The fields are deluged with
chemicals to keep the non-used soil from growing unwanted plants and competing
for nutrients. This is a never-ending battle as people weight the health concerns
of too many chemicals verses the need to provide large yields.
The best reason for a raised bed is that
people tend to be lazy and with a raised bed you don’t have to bend over as
much. Now, I can tell you of the spread cycle of grass and by having a raised
bed you form a barrier which can help in weed control; I can tell you that by
having a raised bed you have less problems with pest – they tend to stay lower
and equate the raised bed as a way to be seen by predators). I could also tell
you by having a raised bed your soil will heat up faster in the spring time
giving the plants a boost. I would also mention that they look nice and can
accent you land scape. But the main reason is when you work the raised bed it
is easier.
A raised bed
however is not meant to be a box sitting on surface. The raised bed is meant to
be a system and that will gain more than having a garden in the ground.
Cycles of the Soil:
That
sounds great but to understand what is going on you have to explore the four
cycles of nitrogen, don’t worry I will tear the others apart in a little bit.
To understand the cycles, you have to first
understand the plants problem. The atmosphere contains mostly nitrogen but in
this form it really does little for the plant.
·
The plant has to get it by taking in organically. These
additives go into the ground and are converted to ammonia (NH4). This is done
by what is listed as mineralization.
·
The ammonia is then changed to Nitrite (NO2). This is done
by nitrification.
·
Then the nitrate (NO2) picks up an oxygen molecule. And
becomes NO3 and is now nitrate
All
of this sounds complicated. Well, just
think it you were a plant and had no eyes, except for a potato that is. You
will just sit in the ground and follow with your roots to stuff that pleases
the tummy or whatever the plant calls it. Here is your problem, you water the
plant the water goes down, you only gave a little so it really literally goes
straight down. The chemical and mineral interactions are dependent on that
path. As you can see from the diagram there is a lot going up just as there is
going down, in fact the only pure down is leaching which is another topic for
later. (Hint we are going to power our house from that.)
So now for
the lesson I have learn. When you water you need to WATER. The water is the
conduit that the reactions use as their super highway.
Phosphorus
Cycle:
Understanding
the phosphorus cycle is easy. When phosphorus is found it is used and everybody
is happy. Condensed down that is how the internet reads. The real jewel is
there is so much about the big N people forget the big P. Phosphorus is usually
found in the ground not the atmosphere. It moves slowly through the soil but
quickly through the plant. The big P is what gives the plant strength. This
element is the structural building block for the plant, N gets it going and P
makes it strong enough to survive.
So what you need to be thinking is if you are
going to have a raised bed and have an essential element like phosphorus that
moves like a slow turtle what are you going to do? The other part is your
harvest. The chart has a mistake in that it does not show how much your loss
from plant removal compared to the other losses. Your soil is a bank for good
or bad and what you remove is gone and what you leave may kill your crop.
Potassium Cycle:
The big K is
interesting. It is the fuel that gets the plant to work. It is a volatile
element (Number 19 on the periodic table) and is needed by plants and animals. It’s pretty well needed by anything that
lives. Potassium is lost by runoff and leaching;
something that is needed to be remembered during the build and is found readily
in potash. Now the potassium comes from fertilize and bio nutrients. They are
lost by erosion and the removal of plants from the soil and a course that
dreaded leaching. K that is in the soil can be captured by clay particles and
bound. (The real interesting part of this) the plant takes K and lets it get
captured the clay but when it does they are unbound and can be used by the
plant as needed.
One of the
other little tidbits is that some clays soil opens up when dried releasing K.
There are other clay soils that open up when wet. So to say “Let the soil dry
it is good for the Cation exchange” is true but also “Water heavy soak that
clay to get the K out” is also true. I think K should be in politics.
So to summarize simply Nitrogen sets how big Phosphorus
sets how strong and Potassium regulates how smooth everything works.
Here is the start of what we explored this summer. More to come. Thanks to Wiki for some diagrams
Here is the start of what we explored this summer. More to come. Thanks to Wiki for some diagrams
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