Let’s start with a few tips on vegetable gardening:

• Get a good book on growing your own vegetables from your local Garden Centre
• Grow what you like to eat in the first place, and secondly experiment with some new vegetables
• Grow high-value crops (like lettuces & herbs ) rather than potatoes which are cheap to buy but need both space and care
• Always plant in a sunny spot, ideally one which gets morning sun as it lifts the dew and warms the soil early in the day, and allows you to water in the evening out of direct sunlight.
• Use as much peripheral space as possible, i.e. position your beds at the edges rather than the centre of the space, to minimise the amount of open space used.
• Grow high-yielding tall plants (peas, beans, tomatoes) towards the back of the bed, with a trellis for support.   
• Positioning beds reasonably close to the house or an existing pathway reduces length of additional pathway needed, and your beds are likely to get more care and attention.
• Prepare a good seedbed, follow the guidelines on the seed-packet, and with a little care nature will do the res
• Involve all the family – it’s a great common interest for children and adults alike
• Enjoy it! Don’t put yourself under too much pressure in the first year until your confidence grows.

Site Selection - where to put your raised bed
The ideal site for growing vegetables is an area of your garden that gets plenty of sun, has good soil and is level. If you don't have a site like this in your garden, don't worry, because a raised bed is the perfect solution to compensate for less than ideal sites. Raised beds allows you level the area and you can add top soil and compost If you have poor soil.

If possible allow for future expansion to your vegetable plot, so measure the potential area and sketch out a number of beds to scale. The selection of garden plans shown below may give you some ideas, but plan a layout that suits your particular needs, striking a balance between the practical and the aesthetic.

Installation

1. Having chosen the location, mow any grass as short as possible as it makes for easier digging and weed control.
2. Assemble the raised bed kits following the enclosed assembly instructions and place them in position before you start digging.
3. Aim to keep beds in line when installing a number of them, and set them in the ground reasonably level.
4. Mark the position of each assembled raised bed by sprinkling a narrow line of flour or sand on the ground around the outer edges, leaving adequate room between beds for a path. When the positions are clearly marked remove the raised bed kits and leave them to one side.
5. Working inwards, strip the turf from underneath the line of flour or sand about the width of your spade to create a shallow trench (ideally 5cm or 2 inches deep). Place the raised bed kit into the trench, removing further turf and deepening or back-filling as necessary to get the bed reasonably level (if you're on a slope you'll need to dig the uphill side deeper than the downhill side).
6. Decide on your digging method for planting purposes: (a). ‘double-dig’ or (b). ‘no – dig’. If you are putting in two or more beds you have the option of doing a ‘double-dig’ on  the first, and ‘no-dig’ on the second.

Double-digging:

Double digging involves loosening the soil to a depth of more than 30cms (12 inches) to aerate the deeper layers of soil providing ideal growing conditions for plants.

How to double dig

• divide the area of the bed into workable sections of about 50 to 60cms (18 to 24 inches) wide across the full width of the bed.
• if grass is present, remove the turf with grass (top sod) from the first section about 5cm to 8cm (2 to 3 inches) deep and set it aside. Skip this point if the ground is bare and free of grass or weeds.
• dig out the topsoil (first layer of soil) from the first section to the depth of a spade and set it aside, removing any stones.
• loosen the soil at the bottom of the first section (second layer) by another spade's depth.

• move to the next section, remove the turf (if present) and place it grassy side down on the loosened subsoil (second layer) of the first section.
• dig the topsoil (first layer) from the second section and place it on top of the first section, creating loose soil to form a seed bed. Iif you have poor soil add organic matter or compost.
• repeat the procedure to the end of the bed
• put the sod and soil set aside from the first section into the last section.
• level and rake the soil to form a smooth seed-bed.

The advantages of double digging are that the bed provides better crops as it allows for deeper rooting, and (provided the soil is good) it requires less compost to fill the bed as soil has a greater volume when loose than when compacted. A disadvantage is that it takes a bit more work initially.

The ‘no-dig’ garden
Remove any obvious deep-rooted weeds (e.g. dock leaves). Spread several layers of newspaper or some corrugated cardboard on the ground and partly up the insides of the raised bed kit (stops weed growth at the edges, and stops compost from rolling out underneath). Water the paper to hold it in position and aid decomposition. Fill the raised bed with a good quality rooting / planting compost, firm appropriately, and plant seedlings!
The advantage of the ‘no-dig’ method is less work and a quicker garden, but the disadvantages include a less abundant crop. 

Cultivation
Regardless of how you go about it, digging a garden is usually hard work! However, if you take a few breaks and manage to get a bit of help, it is very satisfying when you see the results fairly quickly. One major advantage of using the Gairdín raised bed system is that you only dig the area of the actual bed, not the surrounding pathways.

A raised bed also allows you to create a depth of soil not typically available in a suburban garden. If you do not stand on (thereby compacting) the soil in the bed during the year, it will remain loose and aerated and need no digging in future years. This is better for the soil structure, so once established try to avoid unnecessary further digging. Investing time and effort into getting your bed right from the beginning will be well rewarded with good crops over years for little extra effort.

Preparing the seedbed
Having a well-dug bed as described earlier is the foundation for good growth, and then you need to level the topsoil with a spade, and rake it to a fine, crumbly surface. Do this on a nice day when the soil is dry, otherwise the results won’t be as good. If you are using the Gairdín Polythene Cover you will be able to get to work sooner as once in place it will have kept the bed a lot drier, and made the soil a lot warmer prior to planting. Leaving it in place until your seedlings are well established will give you a head-start of a number of weeks on traditional methods. Once the seedlings have grown up to it, it can be removed and stored until needed again. From there the growth of the plants will provide their own micro-climate, and need less watering than if left under cover.

Planting the seeds
All you need to know will be printed on the back of the seed packet, and will vary from plant to plant. Follow these instructions carefully, and keep well watered.

Crop rotation
Separate beds allow for easy crop rotation, the easiest of which is a three-year cycle.  Vegetables are grouped into families which have similar nutrient requirements and pest and disease problems. Rotating crops between the different beds prevents the depletion of soil nutrients, whilst also preventing the build-up of soil-living pests and disease. 

At it’s simplest you can grow Brassicas (the cabbage family) in one bed, non-brassica roots (beetroot, carrot, Parsnip) in another, and onions, peas and everything else in a third. Lettuce can be planted anywhere, a little at regular intervals to avoid it all coming together. Rotate these crops each year to a different bed. All beds can all be installed year 1, or added year-by-year.

As suggested in the opening Tips, it’s best to follow the instructions in a good gardening book in order to get the best from your crops. Enjoy yourself, and you’ll learn as you do along.

Garden layout and design
When your Gairdín raised beds are laid out correctly they are both an ornamental feature that compliments the rest of your garden and a practical system for planting vegetables and flowers. We feel that getting the balance between the aesthetic and the practical is important, particularly in a small garden close to your house.

Below are some possible layouts for your Gairdín raised beds. There are a many geometric patterns that can be followed using our kits.