One raised bed won't grow anything

[Jeremy Knauff]

I've got one raised bed that just doesn't want to grow anything. Last crop, I planted carrots, onions, spinach and kale. Everything started fine, but died off and all I got was a bunch of small carrots and one head of kale.

It's the same as the other beds; soil and compost to start, followed by regular application of my own compost (yard clippings, fruit/veggie scraps, and rabbit manure). I was thinking it might be the FL summer heat, but the other beds do fine and all are in the same area and receive the same water.

Thoughts?

[JohnyMac]

Jeremy,
this is a very good site for veggies. I use it often. http://www.usagardener.com/how_to_grow_vegetables/how_to_grow_kale.php

IMO root veggies are a finicky. Carrots prefer sandy soil. Potatoes prefer rocky soil. Onions prefer rich compost soil. Garlic dry almost arid soil.

Once you harvest your bounty you may want to adjust the soil in your raised beds, e.g. Bed 1, mix the soil for beans, tomatoes, peppers, cuncumers, etc, Bed 2, turnips, carrots, parsnips, etc, bed 3, etcetera. You get the idea.

And you thought this growing veggie thing would be a breeze   

[Jeremy Knauff]

Tomatoes have died left and right too though. That's what the latest crop was supposed to be. And the carrots in between the two rows of tomatoes didn't even sprout this time around.

No, I didn't think it would be easy, but I also didn't expect it to apparently require a PhD. 

[Jeremy Knauff]

FWIW?I'm going to plant some squash in that bed and see what happens, and then adjust another bed to retry the tomatoes.

[crudos]

I'm a complete garden noob, but since these are raised beds, are these sitting directly on top of normal ground, or is there a layer of something between them? My thinking is that somehow the beds aren't draining properly and messing up the soil that way. Just a thought.

[Jeremy Knauff]

No, regular ground. I torched all the grass and weeds, then laid the soil/compost. I outlined my whole process here: http://howtosurviveit.com/build-a-raised-garden-bed/

[JohnyMac]

Great write-up Jeremy.

One suggestion for vegetables: The next bed you make DO NOT use pressure treated wood. Arsenic is used in pressure treated wood and it could leach into the soil/vegetables. I have learned that 2x10's or 2x12's will last for a decade before they rot out. Then just mix in the wood to the garden and install a new 2x10 or 12 and your good for another 10 years or so. 

Here is a suggestion. Take a sample of your soil and mail it off to a Agriculture College in FL. I did that and sent it off to Penn State. I told them what I wanted to grow and they sent back an analysis of what to add to the soil I was using. I think the cost (2006) was postage to and back.   

[special-k]

I'll admit that neither one of these things probably had anything to do with your crop failure (maybe the arsenic if it was at an extreme level), BUT...

I'm glad you said something JM.  I was off looking for a good article to sum it up while you posted.  I found this one: http://www.finegardening.com/design/articles/pressure-treated-wood-in-beds.aspx
While it says to definitely not use treated lumber for a compost bin (due to acidity causing excessive leeching), it kind of leaves the reader up in the air about using it for raised beds, virtually saying "... the arsenic leeches into the soil, but not that much..."  Being that arsenic poisoning is cumulative, I would rather err on the side of caution and go with un-treated lumber OR cinder-blocks (yeah, I know they're ugly & heavy... but they're practical & adjustable for lazy-asses like me.)

I also have a problem with the paper ash... that stuff is full of chemicals that ARE NOT BURNED AWAY!!!  Have you ever noticed that paper ash is greasy, instead of powdery like wood ash?  Yeah, that's god-knows-what that is going end up on your plate.


As for you crop failure...
1. Seriously?  Adding Peat Moss to already acidic Florida soil?  Never listen to whoever gave you that advice again... they were just trying to sell you something.
2. Check the soil pH.
3. You seem to have a strong aversion to sand.  I have found that sand can be one of the best things to add to improve drainage.  I have seen top quality produce grown in nothing more than a mixture of sand + perlite + vermiculite (mostly sand) in a daily hand fed/watered hydroponic garden. 
4. Please remember that half of the shit they tell you at heavily sponsored websites, or garden shops is BS just to get you to fail so you will constantly be coming back to buy more shit from them... Kind of like medical doctors.

[thatGuy]

I'm throwing my hat in with poor drainage, plants that fail to develop do so for that reasion more than any other.

[JohnyMac]

Yeah TG I think you are right. When I read Jeremy's article first I didn't pick up on it.

When my neighbor across from the cabin built his raised beds for his wife, before he put in the topsoil he put in small rocks and stone (We have allot up at the BOL) then the topsoil and some aged chicken manure. He got his topsoil from the top of the soil when he dug his pond and cleared a field of pine trees for his Scottish Highland cattle.

He built the sides with 2x10's stacked on each other so the sides were 20" high. They were held in place with 4"x4" posts in the corners and 36" re-bar pounded into the ground flush with the top of the sides around the walls. After they harvest their bounty he rototillers the raised beds. Once that is done any food waste from the kitchen that does not go to the pigs or chickens goes on top of the raised beds

Here's a interesting thing he also did. He put 1" C-clamps about every 20" or so along both sides of the long runs of the raised beds. He then bought 1" PVC pipe and made a rounded rafter with one the PVC pipe in one clamp on one side an another piece of PVC pipe opposite. He bends the two pieces of PVS pipe towards the center and linked the two pipes together. This is repeated about 12 times or so to make a tunnel down the raised bed.

He then wire tied some PVC pipe down the crown of the tunnel of the PVC rafters to interlock everything together. 

Every year on a sunny day in February he rototillers the raised beds working in the winter compost and some aged chicken manure. Then he waits for a  none windy day to pull clear plastic sheets (5mm thick) over the PVC rafters and wire ties them to the C-clamps which hold the PVC pipe ends. Closes the ends of the PVC tunnel with more sheets of plastic.

Why all of the extra work you ask? Well the raised beds become great green houses which allows his wife to plant veggies 30-60 days earlier than the recommended Memorial Day planting's in an open garden.

Sorry...I got off topic there.

[Jeremy Knauff]

JohnyMac, the arsenic leech is minimal to the point of being a non issue. I did quite a bit of research on that, but based on the fact that your regular wood lasted 10+ years and can be tossed in when it finally does rot makes it a better option in my opinion. I'll give that a try on my next one. Cinder blocks would be great, I REALLY like that idea, but until I am in a house where I won't be moving again (I hate the suburbs), that's not an option. Side note: the cinder blocks will pull minerals out of the soil. I learned about this when I had problems growing plants next to the foundation of my home.

special-k, selective reading? I didn't say I added peat moss. The only place where I mentioned it, I mentioned it being ONE option of several. In fact, the article clearly states that I only used soil and manure. (I've added compost to the top as time has gone on.) No one "sold" me anything. I did my research on several university and agricultural sites; the last person I ask for advice is the Home Depot/Lowes guy...they are about as useless and ignorant as our POTUS. 

Drainage isn't (or doesn't seem to be) the problem?when I water, you can see water come out from under the sides of the bed. That being said, your mention of it gave me the idea that it probably wouldn't hurt to drive and remove a piece of rebar 3-4 feet deep all over the bed to loosen the soil beneath the beds. Sort of like how the lawn guys will walk around with those spiky shoes every few months to aerate your lawn. Come to think of it, you may have given me an idea for a simple device to speed that up.

I'm not to worried about the paper ash?the ink is soy ink (from stuff we printed at home). The wife is in HR and produces a LOT of paperwork that can't be thrown away as-is. The paper itself probably contains some bleach, but that's minimal. It's a one-time thing anyway just to kill the weeds.

I'm definitely going to check the ph?the more I look at it, the more likely that looks to be the issue. All beds were made the exact same way, but this one is the only problem child. The fact that there seem to be no more earthworms in this one could indicate either a ph issue or that I need to kill more opossums. 

Last night I planted squash in the bed, so we'll see shortly if anything is different. It may just have been too hot for the tomatoes.

[Jeremy Knauff]

Oh, FYI?the same site also states that PT lumber is pretty much a non-issue. http://www.finegardening.com/how-to/articles/are-pressure-treated-woods-safe-in-garden-beds.aspx

[thatGuy]

Yeah I love that the first thing people mention when talking about raised beds is the pressure treated wood thing. Sure every thing is all fine and dandy now that we are using ACQ but everything was also find and dandy when CCA was leaching out of decks into puddles killing peoples dogs, poisoning their children and we haven't even mentioned the health effect to the men who worked with that wood. This is a hot button issue of mine, the powers that be have used my industry as a chemical testing ground since day one. They are still trying to tell us that asbestos is safe for fuck sake.

All that aside regular wood does last very well, I've got beds that are coming up on 9 years old that were made from new milled lumber with no treatment and they are still hanging in there, Mom and Dad have beds made from oak dunnage and rebar that have been on the ground for 15 years and are still holding there own. Word to the wise, use galvanized nails.

So you said that water comes out the sides when you water.. I got a raised bed that does that, it also won't grow melons worth a shit even though it is filled 8"deep with hot compost because it suffers from poor drainage. The melon are stunted.. bad.. Their roots are rotting because water is ponding on the subsoil. I intend to remedy that this fall, I got ahead of myself this spring and wasn't able to double dig that bed to get past the localized compaction of our topsoil.

I'm going to cut all the compost off the top, dig a whole bag of gypsum into the subsoil one spade deep and put the compost back on and let it grow rye all winter. Come the spring I will double the rye back in and it should be as productive (if not more) than the rest of my beds.

Fix your drainage buddy and it will grow.

[Jeremy Knauff]

Yeah, like I mentioned, all the new beds will be non PT...I may even replace the existing boards. Not sure on the latter as they've been up a few years and have probably leeched everything out already.

So I will aerate the hell out of the ground under the beds...already have a device in mind that should work wonders.