Raised Wicking Veggie Bed Thread - with photos

We still have lots of renovation work inside the house, but decided to get started on the veggie beds so we could plant some spring veggies:


(digging out the old clothes line post)


(three layers of hardwood sleepers)


(plastic lining)


(ag pipe and gravel)


(water reservoir filled with gravel)


(geotex fabric layer)


(filled with soil and mushroom compost)


(overflow pipe)


(two done, one to go...)

The bigger bed has the plastic just up to the top of the gravel layer. The second bed has the plastic extended up to the top of the bed. Both beds have multiple drainage holes so the soil isn't waterlogged if we get a lot of rain. The plan is to add a worm feeding station and worms.

Just waiting on my Diggers Club seed order and the worms to arrive

sweet

Thanks Nonna

Nice! I have to ask - what's the purpose of the lining, gravel, agg etc in the lowest layer? I haven't seen anything like that before.

The bed is designed to have a water reservoir at the base, and to use less water overall than other irrigation systems. Rather than watering from the top, the water is delivered through this reservoir. So the lining keeps the water inside the bed, and the ag pipe/pvc pipe is used for water delivery. The gravel is there as filler material, basically, allowing the soil to be in contact with the water so that the water wicks up through the soil. Some people use organic matter instead of gravel, but the organic matter needs to be replaced as it breaks down.

Costa did a program on them in his Garden Odyssey series on SBS:
http://www.sbs.com.au/shows/costa/tab-l ... arden-Beds

A search on wicking beds will come up with a few different construction methods. This is the first time we've put one in, so we're learning as we go

oh wow - sounds fantastic! can't wait to see how things go

Thanks! I'll post some photos over the spring/summer as things grow.

The growth over the first week has been great. We got some worm bombs along with the mini worm farms, and it will take a few months for the number of worms to increase, but I think it's going to work really well to have the worms in the beds to structure the soil and move worm castings etc around.

fantastic work

Thanks Rowena!

It all looks and sounds great. Can't wait to see it progressing.

This is very good stuff

Thanks Kaytee and Fu

Looks like a great project - did you see the Costa segments on a pvc pipe worm farm which is buried in the ground and food scraps are delivered in the top? Would be just the shot for those.

Hi keen,

Thank you. I think I've seen something similar on one of the blog posts about wicking worm beds. We ended up going with the mini worm farms which are the black boxes in the previous photo. I needed to order the worms anyway, and there wasn't much cost difference between using wide PVC pipe and the flip top worm farms.

We've had some frost this week, so yesterday I fitted a cover to the wicking bed:



It's a fine knitted material that excludes a lot of insects, and provides some sun protection. I think this year we'll use it for the leafy greens and see how they go.

I take it you have use some 19mm black retic poly pipe for the arches. Plastic bulldog clips there to hold the cover. Come summer try using white shade cloth 70% or 50% if you can get it It will take more edge off the sun that what you have there and stop crops like Cuies, Tomatas, Cappies, Egg plants etc from burning across the tops of the fruit

OK, thanks Fu.

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Everything is growing well, and the lettuces have just about doubled in size over the past week:

If you can white shade cloth lighter than 30% that is fine, just what ever is easiest to get your hands on

I'm loving this set up

This is a really great thread. It looks like it was really well constructed too. Great work guys. I hope it provides you with great fresh veges for years to come.