As a gardener, you may be interested in growing plants that need an efficient drainage system for water, and you've probably experienced the frustration of a yard that doesn't want to allow this. Using a raised bed garden can overcome many of these problems. Certain plants will actually benefit from being in an area that has excess water and poor drainage, and might even experience a lusher bloom. Other plants will simply bloat, rot and die if they are not set up to drain properly. For any plant that you purchase, you should investigate the type of drainage that they'll need, and think about whether or not you have a garden that will support the needs of your plants.
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To test how well your chosen planting area can drain, start by digging a ten inch deep hole. Completely fill this new hole with water, and check it in 24 hours, after all of the water has seemed away. Now, fill it again. Check the hole again in ten hours. If the hole isn't completely drained, the soil in that area does not have a high saturation point, and any water that enters the soil will be there for a prolonged period of time before is seeps away. Most plants won't thrive in these conditions, and you'll need to come up with a solution if you're interested in the survival of your plants.
One common technique to make the drainage better is to build a raised bed garden. This process requires that you build a border around the area you'd like to garden in about five inches in height, and fill it with compost and soil. The slight alteration in height will have a surprising affect on the draining that your garden will experience. Depending on whether you're trying to build a raised bed on dirt or grass, your be should be built with slight differences to accommodate these conditions.
If you intend on gardening in an area without grass, all you need to do is construct a border to hold the dirt and compost that you need to add. Using something as simple as some two by fours is surprisingly efficient and effective. Once you've built this small wall, you need to add the right quantity of compost and soil. You'll need to alter this ratio to minimize the deterioration of the soil before you begin planting.
If you intend on building your raised bed over an area of sod, the process is a little more tricky. You'll first need to flip over the sod which surrounds the perimeter of the garden. This might seem easy, but you'll need to find a tool with sharp edges if you want to effectively slice through the sod. After the sod has been flipped over, you'll want to lay down some straw, which prevents the grass from regrowing. After the straw has been laid, you can add the compost and soil that you normally would for a garden.
It's not difficult to grow any plants you want to in this new raised area. This doesn't really differ that much from the regular planting process. You simply need to try to keep the roots from entering the ground level which your raised bed is built on. The purpose of building this raised bed has been to raise your plants above your yard's soil, which drains poorly. By having plants that will root into this, it defeats the purpose.
After you've put plants into the raised bed garden, you'll notice a very quick improvement in their health. This extra soil promotes healthier root growth. This kind of bed also prevents decomposition and evaporation. With all of these factors in place, you'll see that your plants are now in a perfect environment to grow strongly. It's not that intimidating at all to change your yard's topography. The process is simple, as you've just read, and the work involved is completely rewarding in the long run.
