"Pete C." > wrote in message
ster.com...
>
> "modom (palindrome guy)" wrote:
>>
>> On Sun, 15 Mar 2009 13:59:28 GMT, "brooklyn1"
>> > wrote:
>>
>> >"modom (palindrome guy)" wrote:
>> >>
>> >> The community garden plugs along. We'll plant this spring or I'll die
>> >> trying.
>> >>
>> >> Yesterday Bobby from the local hardware and feed store delivered
>> >> enough 12-foot 2 x 12's to make 35 12 x 4-foot raised beds.
>> >
>> >
>> >I hope all that lumber is pressure treated, and the newer safer treated
>> >lumber will begin to rot in like ten years, sooner if your area is
>> >generally
>> >wet. I think for a community garden a much better system would be to
>> >have
>> >like 10' X 10' plots staked out directly on the ground... in so many
>> >ways it
>> >will be infinitely simpler to maintain. For the cost of all that lumber
>> >a
>> >tremendous quantity of topsoil could have been hauled in, and each fall
>> >and
>> >spring so much easier to amend and till.
>> >
>> We know what we're doing. Besides a professor of ag science and the
>> director of the county extension service, members of our group include
>> retired farmers, a certified master gardener, and an expert in drip
>> irrigation systems.
>>
>> >So what is the purpose of this venture, what crops are planned?
>> >
>> Mission: Our mission is to support community gardening by building
>> community participation, civic pride, and awareness of benefits to the
>> environment and individual health. We will provide opportunities to
>> learn about food production, generate produce for individual
>> participants and the impoverished, and demonstrate sustainable land
>> stewardship.
>>
>> Individual members of the community will lease plots and grow what
>> they want in them with the advice of the master gardener and the
>> county extension service.
>>
>> An established local group called Cereal Crops Research, Inc. will
>> plant and maintain larger plots of corn, beans, peas, edamame, etc.
>>
>> A workshop on composting and selecting tomato varieties appropriate to
>> our soil and climate is scheduled in the coming weeks. Discussion is
>> underway regarding cooking and preserving classes in the large kitchen
>> of a nearby church. Other events may happen as the project develops.
>> --
>>
>> modom
>
> I did community garden stuff in a different part of the country years
> ago, and I agree with the argument against raised beds. All the
> community gardens I've ever been involved in were just stake and string
> delineated plots with walking paths between the rows and watering
> spigots every 50' or so. Raised beds may be a bit more photogenic, but
> they tend to be a hassle unless they're really tiny plots. Typical plots
> I've seen were 10x25, 25x25, and 50x50.

I've been heavily involved in community gardening too, including several
years at Brooklyn Botanic Garden. They all stay far away from raised beds,
they're too costly to build and maintain, plus they don't produce nearly as
well as planting beds directly on the ground... the typical newbie gardeners
quickly become disenchanted even under the best of conditions, add any level
of difficulty, extra labor, and poor results and it's adios.

Unless the participants are each in their own right accomplished gardeners
those raised beds will very soon become
abandoned heaps of rot. Raised beds are far more a challenge than beds
directly on the ground.