Want to make a garden bed quickly? Use these techniques to make quick garden beds that you can turn into permanent beds later.
— Lay down cardboard or wet newspaper, top with several inches of grass clippings, shredded leaves, or weed-free hay/straw. Use a hand trowel to pull back the mulch, cut away sod, and open up planting holes for stocky transplants (tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, cukes, etc.).
— If you don’t want to plant directly into your soil (because of nutrient deficiencies, etc.), buy some 40 pound bags of topsoil. Slash drainage holes in the bottoms of the bags and lay them over the area you want for your growing bed. Use a sharp knife to cut away the top of the bags. Moisten well, then plant the bags with seeds/transplants, and mulch to cover the bags. Tip: when growing tomatoes in bags, allow one bag of topsoil per plant.
— Use bales of straw or hay to frame a big raised bed (arranged in a rectangle, a 15 bale instant bed will be 8’x20’). Fill the enclosure with as much soil, compost, and any other growing mediums you can find (a truckload or two). Allow several days of intermittent watering to thoroughly moisten the growing medium and the bales, then plant veggies inside and on top of your straw bale barge. As long as you keep this set up moist, it will support a large array of veggies and decompose into a nice large bed of organic matter in about a year.
— Along the same lines, just build a frame out of fencing, rails, etc. (it doesn’t necessarily need to be 4 sided either—just lay 2 rails parallel to each other) and fill with soil.
Keep in mind that plants grown in “instant” beds will probably need more water/fertilizer than plants that can reach roots into the ground.
Taken from Mother Earth News, Vol. 6, Spring 2010
