Put a flat paver every 10 feet or so in the middle of the bed as a stepping stone. I have 9x6 bricks that were about $2 each. On a 50 foot bed of lettuce you lose the space for 4 or so plants but are only stepping 2 feet at a time instead of jumping 4 feet.
I wake up in the morning and watch one of your videos(even an old one)and not only do I absorb more for my grey matter, but enjoy your humor. Keep keeping up and trying new things and evolve. Thanks Farmer Jessie
I use 120cm (~48 in.) beds and 36-40cm mulched paths on our allotment here in England. Every market gardening book I've read (with the exception of Dowding) works around the 30 inch bed format. I'm glad I resisted; losing all of that potential bed space to pathways when we only have 250 sq.m. total was just not feasible. I do find myself leaping and pole vaulting across them with rakes and hoes. Though I've never seen my reflection in the process, I know it must look absolutely ridiculous. But efficiency is king! With my short legs I have got stuck doing the splits while transplanting more times than I'd like to admit... pros and cons :) Thanks for the video! Your book is another one for the ever-increasing winter reading list.
Lol, you are funny! I would like that but I have limited mobility right at the moment and jumping is not an option for me. I might even go less than 30" maybe 24" for now...will see. If lumber wasn't so ridiculously high in price I would do high beds so I ca sit while gardening. The problem with raised beds is the amount of soil you need.... Will see! 48" souds so much better though...
The book is great. I bought it and am particularly happy that you actually have an appendix of journal references. This gives me the confidence that your recommendations are science-based and are not just ad hoc "just so" organic gardening stories.
I did a project for class and found that I would more likely use around 50in beds just due to more space available and it just allows for another 1 or 2 ros of crop depending on what your growing. I love 48 since it’s so close anyways. 😊
Ive personally always gotten the most out of 48" beds. More space in use means less garden space needed altogether, as you said reducing path management is a great thing! Even with a living path.
thanks for bringing up this important subject Jesse! I found the podcast episode with hexhamshire organics was super helpful in hearing about wide beds also. My farm is 1/4 acre of bed and path space and I calculated that if I simply joined my beds together creating 'double beds' I would increase my growing space by 30% on the same garden footprint. I couldn't get that space efficiency out of my head and so it had to happen! This enabled me to get around all the materials that work well with 30 inch beds ie. row cover, insect netting, hoops and cat tunnels. These materials for me always covered 2 beds anyways so it worked perfectly. They are now 75 inches with 16 inch paths. It was an absolute no brainer and I haven't looked back. Using the deep compost mulch system means that if I sometimes need to step on the bed to harvest or to seed or to transplant it's no biggie, just firms up the surface compost.
Indeed, that was a great conversation--I think a lot about their approach to bed width. And that's a good point about the deep compost mulch. I step on my beds all the time just because I'm not worried about compacting my mulch layer--if anything it could use a little compacting from time to time
We used 45 inch beds in our hoop houses with 11 inch pathways, This allows us to still use all of our 15 inch wide tools efficiently, i.e. precision Seeders Like the Jp5 and Johhnies 6 row seeders tilther etc. Those beds Are then narrowed for double row tomato and cuke plantings So we can have wider pathways to work with during training and harvest. The wider pathways are not necessary for Greens production and harvesting. Just one note for folks who produce food on hillsides with the beds going across the hill, wider beds are substantially more difficult to manage. The 30 inch bed makes a perfect little terrace on our steep grade. We used 11 inch pathways on all over outside beds as well, that allows us lots of efficiency in terms of use of space and very minimal pathway management. The pathways essentially the width of a standard garden spade. Narrow paths are not for every one but they work great for us.
Always look forward to your videos! Another great one. All my beds are 48” wide and 96” long. They are all raised beds. I like the width because our arms are 24” long on average, so I can reach to the middle of my beds from either side to plant, prune, etc. Works great 👍🏼
I am a small scale home gardner but I ordered your book a few weeks ago. I also enjoy your videos. I am wanting to compost and all the other things to make my garden soil healthy where my plants will thrive. Thanks for sharing all your knowledge. 🙂
Hehe! You're training whilst doing something useful. Not like the guys who go around the forests!!! Remember to learn to slide your hands down the pole!!!!!! Hehe.
First thing I thought of when the video started was, "Why not 66" beds?" So paths on either side and enough space for a foot down the middle. I have 48" raised beds so I can't trial it. I have been thinking of the video from the guy who talked about maximizing your scarce resource use. He was the guy with the great mantra of "own the spring" and did "pac-man harvesting". 30" tools still work.
Much love from Vermont friend, love the vids and confidence 😆 (my math is correct). Your energy makes me smiles and start my day off right. Keep the great info coming.
So timely. We're working to get the land and start a small farm next year and I keep resisting the 30 inch bed plan in all my planning. This settled it for me, thanks!
BTW - The book is excellent.. Love of farming & natural processes. Science-based partnering with Nature. Real, reliable info on what works & not. The book & vids make me feel better & work better. :)
I received the book several months ago and am going to follow several of your ideas even though I just garden 900+ feet. The book just makes so much sense to me and I think it will be super helpful for this new gardener who is over 80 therefore has less energy. I encourage anyone who has not bought on to do so. I am so glad there are people such as you that loves the research and knowledge that you pass on to us. Havagudun Jesse.
I ordered the book last week. This is my first year no till gardening. Lots of work left to do, but between you and Josh and Charles I am learning alot. Thanks, keep up the good work.
I’ve been planning my market farming that I’ll start next year and the math just makes sense for this. Also, if we really want this type of farming to be ramped up to “feed the world” we will need to also graduate from hand tools and bcs to a more mechanized approach. We have a Kubota compact tractor and it’s easy to use wheel spacers to get to that 48” width. Flail mowers and planters can also fit that space. Great video!
I did a lot of math with different plant spacing, and for me going to 36 just made a lot of sense, almost everything has breakpoints to where you get a big boost by having the extra 3 inches on both sides and at the same time I am still able to straddle it, which was a big concern.
I live in a pretty arid place (Central WA) and have been playing around with the idea of wider beds but periodically sinking large wood pieces throughout to be both a safe place to step and a hugelculture. Thanks as always ❤️
Another way to look at it: A 14x30 bed to pathway ratio utilizes 68% of total space for growing. Your new 18x48 configuration utilizes 73% of total space. A 14x48 would up that to 77% and add ANOTHER 235 sf
I bought the book last month. Great read! Been gardening for 10 years and have went from traditional tilling every year, to a back to Eden style for a "no-till" and finally going no-till with rows instead of just blanketing a large space. It was amazing to see all the worms underneath the leaves i used, in place of woodchips, (made me sad i was tilling every year!) but there is so much wasted space in the garden still. I am going with rows to hopefully get a better planting system down to maximize space! Thank you for the book and many videos! They really help a guy like me understand better and it gives me a visual to put into action!
Hi Jesse, if walking on your beds is an issue, you could set up a stepping stirrup. I can't believe how much you have done this year. You rock! No, REALLY!!! ❤️.
I use 42” beds and 14” wood chip paths, you can plant very close to the path as the roots spread under it. Also I’m 6’6” so I can still step over them😂
I ordered almost as soon as you offered this book and am patiently waiting. Been using 4' beds ever since I read John Jeavons book years ago ( I'm 70). Just a home gardener. I think 5' is too hard to reach across harvesting and I'm 6' ;but way too far for my 5'2" wife. Its not only too far to reach but hard on back . I think 4' is the outer limit. John Jeavons recommends 5' but he is after maximum yield and I have enough space. I also have 18" walkways which my crops overlap at maturity and end up really only 1 ft with the crop overhand. Larger beds form a living mulch which helps with water conservation and I need that in hot Texas. This year I have my 1st greenhouse 20x36 -10 foot tall with double top. Keep up the good work.
I loved John Jeavons Biointensive gardening. I also went with the 5' wide slight raised bed design. I reduced it to 4' and 2' pathways ( easier to be on hand & knees and mower/wheelbarrow fits perfect in path). Even made a bed making frame 6' x 8' long using 2x4's, and one with 2x6's ( one long board set at 2 ft for path and 4 ft for bed). I pull it along with rake as I go down bed row.
Enjoyed your crayon math. Good to hear someone else uses whatever is at hand. I have found, by doing this my mind filters into an accurate level of consciousness; taught to me by my 9.5 yo granddaughter. I'm setting up a new market garden space on our 18 acre farm; tarping at present. Spacing isn't a factor, a deer fence of 300' ft sq has been erected for now. I like the idea of wider beds with the usage of 'stepping pads' to transverse to the otherside. Fifty foot lengths will be fine to set critical thinking of completion allowing more production/ control in 250 x 14 ft in tunnels. Later, more non covered space will be formed as needed. If you would please, pass on any measurements of the materials needed for the wider beds and purchase links/ PC. Greatly appreciated. Looking forward to reading your book, purchased today, and hearing more about your success and ideas. TY
BTW, here are two YT creators with "M s" of subscribers that, I've watched for many of years. Check out their family farms... interesting SOP used by many of our family/ clan farms abroad, ~ 75# . 1. Liziqi 2. Dianxi Xiaoge Yes, beautiful videos, I do enjoy how they show the usage of food in their daily homesteads! Something many new farmers aren't sure about. Enjoy your summertime adventure.
You don't have to worry about leaping over bigger beds if you don't mind sometimes stepping on your beds. Charles Dowding does this all the time and as long as you aren't regularly traveling on your beds there is not really any compaction. I'm about to start trialling 60" beds of lettuce and kale and I'm just going to step through the beds carefully if I have to... Safer than hopping over especially if it has just rained
For me, the most efficient is having no bed width at all. With the no till system we are using and the fact that we don't use any mechanical force we often don't need to pass between planting and harvest time. The path become mini beds for faster crop (head lettuce, green onions, fennel) while we are using the beds for long DTM crop like cucs, zucs or brocolis, and for certain crop we do a full field with no pathways: winter squash, corn, melons, winter cabage etc. This can really help get the most of every surface and for harvesting we go front ways into the vegetajungle! 😋
Great video, and even better looking farm! Congrats on the book, it will soon grace my stinky thinky throne room. The effort you put into your videos is greatly appreciated.
Somehow! Someday! For the book. But thanks for explaining about the increased bed size. Really got me thinking.
3 года назад
I understand the reasoning behind the better usage of space. I've read a book from Igor Ljadov and he recommends narrow beds and wider paths and he goes on to explain that the airflow between the beds actually contributes to the healthy growth. I guess everyone must look at his space, environment and goals and choose what suits him best.
48" beds, have a 48" tiller and 48" landscape fabric. 24" walkways covered in 6" of woodchips. Did this so two people can be on a walkway and for visitor comfort hopefully having folks in the garden one day. 50' long rows with a 6' break.
Part of the reason is garden tractors have 24-30" of space between their tires. From when tractors started being used people based off the work area that they could handle.
I've done 48" beds in my 60 ft backyard garden - and every 8 feet I leave 12" gap in planting so I have a tiny path (bare dirt) to cross over. I do find your leaping image quite amusing though - pair it with a catchy them song about the happy gardener and it will be a hit, lol :)
My beds are 38". With tomatoes I run them along 1 side like 8-10 inches in from the edge. That leaves just about enough room for 2 rows of beets or a mess of carrots or whatever one would want in the other 2/3's of the bed. I'm not a market gardener, but this works for me. Running tomatos down the middle seems like splitting the bed and making you run around more.
My greatest concern is reaching over to the middle of the bed and how quickly it can be done. It’s hard to have leverage to pull weeds 3ft from the side of a bed (2ft to the center and 1 ft for my boot). The other issue is time efficiency. If the bed is 48” wide and your tool is 30” wide then you’ll need a double pass and then you’ll have overlap where some soil is tooled twice when once is enough.
The reach can be a little tough at times but that’s for my body (almost six foot tall with no sever movement or back issues). As for the tools, it really hasn’t seemed to be a lot of additional passes but that’s for my crops and context. A heavy greens operation would likely notice the extra movement
So I’m afraid the shipping hasn’t changed BUT it will officially be available there in late August I believe. And then if you want to support our work you can always go the patreon route (patreon.com/notillgrowers).
Because of my health I use the ih cub to plant. I was able to mount the jang 3 row on the belly cultivators. That allows me to off set and I do plant like 24 in beds with this set up.
It seems like even if you don't have access to wood chips in a drier area like Texas it would still be good to play with living pathways if you have to use a bit more water... maybe there is some heat and drought resistant ones? I loved your video on that and I look forward to more research. I look forward to buying the book once we get set up in our new house and paid some. I like the resiliency and photosynthesis aspect of beds with living pathways, and I love using a reel mower. I don't like having to depend on whether or not I can get wood chips and quality compost so I love the experiments you are doing with bed building
Why not 40 inches / 100 cm? Seems like a good middle ground. Possible to step across (at least for people with longer legs), and very easy to calculate (yields per) square meters, if you're a metric kind of human being. It's also relatively compatible with common plant spacings. With 45cm pathways, your growing area is ~69% of the total area, compared to 73% with 1.2m width. At least for me, with long legs, it's worth the tradeoff. Easier maths, easier bed crossings.
I had 12’ x 4’ raised beds. I used 5 foot long 1x6 boards placed across the middle in order to cross to the other side, or to place one foot on in order to more easily get access to the middle of the bed. They were easy to move around and slide across the bed wherever I needed access. I would think thoughtfully placed 1x6 boards of 2 foot length on each side of a mounded bed would work just as well.
I have always had 48: beds. I slipped in the mud once when I was jumping over so I place boards throughout the bed to walk on to get to the other side:)
If you decide to stay with 48 please consider some giveaways to viewers of the 30 inch row covers hoops etc. I know you won't waste them but there a some of us beginners that are cash strapped and it would be a blessing
Oh yeah that’s confusing. They’re not getting thrown out they are “waste” because what used to cover two beds comfortably, now is a little too much for one bed and not enough for two. So they’re just overkill
In your calc of square footage saved, did you factor in the perpendicular paths now in between your 50ft rows vs one contiguous 100ft row? Interesting experiment and I like the thinking. Its the leaping that gets me. I have some 36" beds and even those I find annoying. I am rich though also in space and don't mind sacrificing a bit to aisles
Great question! So for us no, because all of our plots have always been 100ft by 50ft, we just used to go the length of the 100 and not the 50), so the space between plots hasn’t changed. This size helps with drainage on our weird bumpy/slope-y lands. But it possibly could eat into your gains depending on how you set up your plots. Have to do that math based on your context.
I have a mix of 30" and 4ft beds. I can't jump the 4ft, but I do step on it. Never in the same place twice if I can help it but doesn't seem to be detrimental to the soil or crop.
Jesse, where do you find the piss and vinegar to farm fill time AND raise a family AND get up/stay up until 2:30 writing a book? And then make and edit podcasts and videos? I want to get in to market gardening and my wife and I just had our first child and trying to find that grit to get up early and make it happen has been a challenge. What drives you?
Haha well It took me many years to develop my early morning routines. I also have a patient wife who believes in what I’m doing and takes up extra work. And I also have learned to be efficient. I’m also obnoxiously energetic-kind of a curse haha.
Nice topic because we come From 120cm or 150cm to 80cm . The 120 comes From horses/tractors. Of course more Growing space, but it is easier handling if your working by hand . And we grow more tens What we have learned . So it is also What is your historie . But still nice topic.
Do you plant stuff in the bed with it's full-grown 'spread' in mind? In other words, do you space plants in each bed to allow the full-grown plant to still leave you your 18" path? This is what I assume and what makes sense to me. Thanks.
I never liked the idea of 18" pathways. It's fine for lettuce but with bigger plants like peppers 18" equals no pathway come September. I'm going with 48" beds and 36" pathways next year but I still have plenty of space to expand
plant the peppers towards the middle, and lettuce, beets, etc. on the sides, problem solved. I'm using 15" paths, and while there's some brushing against plants when working (wear your rainboots in the morning dew), it's not really a problem. I have two fields I rotate through (alternating every year), each one is 24, 48" x 220' beds with 15" paths. I plant tomatoes, cucurbits, corn (sweet corn), and pole beans off to one side of the bed, the remaining 30-36 inches in each bed is left for all the other stuff I grow. I just inset the tomatoes in from the edge about 6 inches and plant carrots or one-cut lettuces there. All planting, harvesting and weeding tasks are done based off paths, rather than beds, so I don't need to worry about reaching across to the other side all that much.
40 years ago when I was younger I could do 48" beds but now I do 36" and 32" beds. Wider beds saves soil space. Walk ways are wasted space but need to be 32" wide for my tiller. Plants don't seem to care how wide beds are. I never do raised beds, waste of time, too expensive, too much extra work, and dry as desert we only get 1 or 2 small rains every month June to Oct. I do, onion beds, garlic beds, carrot beds, bean beds, potato beds, these are surface beds not raised beds. I use 1"x 6" boards as a levee around beds to hold in water so water does not escape to the walk way area. If I had a smaller tiller I could do narrower row spacing for short plants like, carrots, onions, garlic, beans. Bush beans are several times more productive than pole beans and several times less work too.
Answer in case you don't wanna watch 12 minutes of footage: If you use wider beds than the standard(30in+/75cm+) you will have less area on your property as pathways, so you can use more of your land towards beds. The downside is that tools and equipment is usually for 75cm beds.
That's funny. In Australia, young kids at school use cm. Even in high school. When you start working & or go to our version of trade school, everyone uses millimeters / mm. 10mm = 1cm. 100mm = 10cm, 4" but, I was a plumber in a past life & we used imperial too. 1/2", 3/4" etc copper,, 2", 1"1/4 for traps under sinks, 4" pvc sewer pipe etc. Confusing much?
Great stuff! When I first got into this stuff Eliot's New Organic Grower was like the small veg farm manual. He recommends both 30" and 48" beds. Somewhere along the lines everything standardized at 30. When you say lettuce at 7-8", is that salanova, little gem style, or full heads?
Hard to say really. Would require some serious testing though I'm definitely not opposed to doing that sort of testing in the future. I just really like the biodiversity in the growing space.
Hey Jesse Farm is looking amazing! I'm over in Lancaster Pa we spoke several years back. Question: have you incorporated more compost tea applications? Are you sourcing your own compost? How's the mineral content out there in the soil? Thanks Bk
Hi bill! So yes, we are using more liquid compost applications, but not more tea. In fact, we don't use tea nearly as much as we use simple slurries. For those applications we make our own compost (generally a thermophilic compost run through a worm bin). Mineral content is good. I'm trying to do as little mineral amending as possible. Focusing instead of Foliar applications.
@@notillgrowers Good to know Jesse! I'd have to say 4ft beds is where it's at! I do a lot of inner cropping as well maximizing the space . You videos inspire me to head in full time. We are mostly relying on home grown produce with really high mineral contents and you just can't find it in the stores as you know. I own a landscaping / masonry business but I am considering a change in direction soon.... Do you have any preference in seed stock suppliers this year? Keep up the informative videos! Thanks for the quick response. Peace from Pa
Great video. I grow in the uk on 1.2m nodig beds at my allotment. I always end up stepping on them but it doesn’t seem to cause any problems. Have you tried it? When is your book available to the uk?
