Raised Bed Gardening.

[Mr.Glock]

I believe the wife is going back to raised bed gardening with her cattle tubs. Some things just don’t like the tubs, mainly in our case Squash. And we loveeeeee Squash. And Jalapeños do better in ground as well. So I was instructed that is happening.

Any of you have issues with tubs and such nit doing good in them?

 

[tynyphil]

Squash does really good in old tires. The tires seem to resist quash bugs too. I usually plant vining plants like watermelon and cantaloupe in them too.

 

[retrieverman]

I have raised beds, and in my opinion, it’s a much more efficient way to garden. I don’t use “tubs”, but I do have 3 old galvanized water tanks. I’ve had tomatoes in the two smaller tanks and squash in the big one for a couple years, and they do really well until it gets hot. I’m going to grow my squash and tomatoes in the wooden beds next year and see if it makes any difference.

 

[cowadle]

my experience with tubs is that the soil temp gets to hot. but a proper raised bed will warm up faster in the spring to allow the growing season a little longer in those good spring months. but they cool off a little sooner in the fall. check the soil temp in your tubs and let us know what it gets to at different times of the day? sunny and cloudy?

 

[2busy]

If doing water trough for container gardening you can put styrofoam insulation inside next to the walls before filling with whatever you are using. Helps to prevent heat transfer through the metal.

 

[rickm]

From my experience when using raised beds and containers it takes more water than it does in a open garden.

 

[OHJEEZE]

It seems to me to be way more expensive and more trouble than it is worth.

I prefer to plant in the ground.

I guess it is great for some folks, but not for me!

How do you plant with a 2 row planter and cultivate with a tractor? Or hill hundreds of feet of potato plants with disk hillers mounted on the tractor?

 

[THAT Gurl]

Well hell, everybody already said what I was gonna say ... EXCEPT ...

My squash does better in raised beds than it does in the ground here but I suspect it's because my entire yard is the sandiest loam I have ever seen. In fact, I think there is probably about 1% loam -- and I'm being generous with a whole 1%.

All that said, I do have to go out of my way (like get a paintbrush) and manually transfer pollen from the male to female flowers. Dunno why but it's just always been that way here. Same thing with the tomato plants -- I have to shake the stems and make the pollen fall.

That's one of the reasons I'm putting in a pollinator garden around the outside perimeter of the front yard (where my raised beds are). Hopefully next spring I won't have to run around giving the tomato and squash plants help doing what they should be doing on their own with the birds and the bees.

 

[Firpo]

I built these and they did great. Had more zucchini and crooknecks than I could handle.

 

[Mr.Glock]

my experience with tubs is that the soil temp gets to hot. but a proper raised bed will warm up faster in the spring to allow the growing season a little longer in those good spring months. but they cool off a little sooner in the fall. check the soil temp in your tubs and let us know what it gets to at different times of the day? sunny and cloudy?

I think you are right. She stated might paint the tubs white and sink em in the ground a few inches. And a guy down the road from me puts his tubs on pallets and moves em about with his forks/tractor, some don’t get full Sun. Kinda cool idea. He also starts the way earlier than ground gardening as they are inside his barns. Storms coming, high winds/hail he just moves them inside.