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+--- Thread: How to divide a bed 13' x 10'? (/showthread.php?tid=1274)
How to divide a bed 13' x 10'? - Veggie - 11-09-2021
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Help needed please.
For the past few years I've been growing in these bottomless "tubs" - first potatoes, then courgettes. This year the courgettes have been rubbish but the unintentional spuds, have been OK!! The soil in the tubs is exhausted and there are weeds growing in and under the tubs that need removal.
I've decided to do away with the grass path between the beds and make one huge bed, emptying all the tubs of soil into it.
I now have a bed measuring 13' x 10', with the 13' sides on the North and South, the 10' ones on the West and East. The bed slopes from North to South, there's a small apricot tree on the North side and the East side is under a big old ash tree.
I want to divide the bed into sections with cardboard "paths" for access but I'm struggling to decide how to divide it and how wide each section should be.
For example, it could be long beds running N/S or E/W.
Or square yard beds.
Or 4 triangles with diagonal paths from each corner.
Or Vinny's Fishbones.
What would you do?
RE: How to divide a bed 13' x 10'? - JJB - 11-09-2021
Keep it at 13 x 10 area of growing space and give up on the paths so I could decide each growing season which direction I wanted to grow. My own paths are in different places each year
RE: How to divide a bed 13' x 10'? - Mark_Riga - 11-09-2021
I'd probably go NS with 3 beds 3'6" wide and 2 15" paths. I prefer N/S as you shouldn't get a low growing crop being overshadowed by a higher one, Vinney, I think uses 15" paths on his plot.
RE: How to divide a bed 13' x 10'? - SarrissUK - 11-09-2021
I would have it all as one large growing area. The beauty of no dig is that you can quite easily walk all over it without making a mess. It's usually easiest to keep some kind of path though, but my allotment was never so tidy that you could easily see where the path ended and where the beds began lol
RE: How to divide a bed 13' x 10'? - Small chilli - 11-09-2021
Think I’d split it into 4 triangles
RE: How to divide a bed 13' x 10'? - Veggie - 11-09-2021
Keep the ideas coming please.
I have 8 different designs on the back of an envelope and I'm curious to see how many are suggested here - and if there's a favourite!!
RE: How to divide a bed 13' x 10'? - Vinny - 11-09-2021
No beds wider than 2 foot, but because you are short arse maybe 20 inch wide beds 14 inch wide paths!
RE: How to divide a bed 13' x 10'? - Veggie - 12-09-2021
Don't you start, Vinny
You have given me another idea though but I'm having difficulty sketching it on my envelope! If I can't draw it, I have little hope of planting it!!
I'll let you think about it instead.............its a rising sun with sun ray paths shining across the bed. The sun would rise as a semi-circle across one corner, probably the south west, as that is the first corner I'd come to from the house. The beds between the rays/paths would get wider as they reach the far sides, so they'd be like elongated triangles. the widest part of the bed at the edges could be tended from outside the bed.
I can see it in my mind with each "triangle" planted with a contrasting coloured leaf - like beetroot, planted next to carrots, next to yellow chard, next to red lettuce etc.
Of course, it would never work unless I could keep the chooks and dogs off it as they just trash everything!! No wonder I do a lot of random planting.
RE: How to divide a bed 13' x 10'? - Scarlet - 12-09-2021
I would just plant the lot - I love no path beds
RE: How to divide a bed 13' x 10'? - SarrissUK - 12-09-2021
That rising sun layout is essentially what I am going to need to do, but with a pond thrown in among the rays lol