Planting raised beds

A raised bed in a sunny location is ideal for growing a wide variety of vegetables. It doesn't matter whether it's a cucumber, tomato, lettuce, potato or cabbage – they all love plenty of warmth and light. That's why you should make sure that you erect your raised bed in a sunny location. Ideally, your raised bed should also be slightly sheltered from the wind or in the best case even covered. After all, many heat-loving vegetables do not appreciate summer rainfall. Tomatoes in particular are extremely keen on locations sheltered from the rain.

Incidentally, one big advantage of raised beds is that you don't have to worry about the soil conditions. Since you're the one who fills your raised bed, you can create the best conditions for your plants. That's why our article on filling raised beds shows you what material the layers of your raised bed should consist of. If you have the right foundation, you can even put the raised bed on a concrete surface, such as in front of an unused garage, and enjoy a rich summer harvest – as long as the location is sunny and sheltered from the wind.

If your raised bed is exposed, it makes sense to put the largest plants in the middle. Then the medium-sized vegetable plants follow and finally the smallest, hanging or climbing plants grow at the edge. Strawberry, nasturtium or cucumber plants are especially good candidates for planting around the edges. If you position your raised bed against a wall, the tallest plants should be planted at the very back next to the wall. In front of those come medium-sized vegetable plants and you can put plants that stay really low or hang downwards at the forward edge.

Gardeners who have three or four raised beds in their garden can think about filling them with 'only' two to five vegetable plants at a time, which then move to another raised bed year after year. This form of rotation sees the crop change beds every year. For example, the first raised bed could be used for plants with a medium/high nutrient uptake (such as potatoes, cucumbers and peppers), the second for plants with a medium nutrient uptake (such as carrots, leeks, kohlrabi, peas or endives), and the third for plants with a low nutrient uptake (such as small radishes, spinach or lamb's lettuce).
If you have a fourth raised bed, then as with normal crop rotation you can plant green manure consisting of lupins and clover so as to return nutrients to the soil. All the plants then move to the next bed in the following year, so that the vegetable plants with a high nutrient uptake move to the freshly fertilised bed and those with a low nutrient uptake to the bed that contained plants with a medium nutrient uptake. Alternatively, before planting you can fill the bed with a generous portion of compost and fresh vegetable soil that's high in nutrients.

Such an elaborate vegetable growing plan only makes sense if you have enough space available, however. Gardeners with a balcony or small garden often have only one or two raised beds at their disposal. And normally, these two beds should accommodate as many different vegetable plants as possible – so that in addition to carrots, spinach and leeks, you can also harvest tomatoes, cucumbers and strawberries in the summer. This is usually possible without any problems as long as you allow for enough space between the plants, take the growth habit into account and consider respective needs. Position large plants so that they don't prevent the light from reaching smaller ones and where possible combine plants with similar nutrient requirements or ensure that you leave out less hungry vegetable plants when fertilising them.