- Less compacting of the soil (you're not trampling over it to get to another part of the bed) which means easier weeding and improved growing.
- Better soil drainage, meaning less disease.
- You're effectively planting into double the amount of topsoil, and can therefore plant much more closely. This helps to create a micro-climate, protecting your crops whilst ensuring they're getting all the nutrients they need.
- Easier gardening. With a Home Grown Revolution bed you can comfortably perch on the edge of the sleepers/timbers whilst easily reaching to the middle of the bed, which means less strain on the gardener's back.
- There's much more protection against weed creep. You will still get airborne weeds, but with the good uncompacted topsoil (see above) these are easy to get rid of. To make it even less likely you'll be bothered by weeds, we put a good, heavy duty weed suppressing membrane under the gravel or bark path which surrounds our installed beds.
- You can grow your vegetables in environments not usually associated with good growing properties, such as heavy clay soil. The good quality screened top soil that we provide just sits on top and the vegetables grow happily away.
- Much easier maintenance. No heavy ground to dig over every year.
Q. I work full time. When do I find the time
to garden?
A. Well, we can't magic up another three or four hours into the day. And we can't say that growing your own doesn't take any time or effort, it does. But using one of our Home Grown Revolution beds will give you a really good head start. In addition to the advantages outlined above in the first question, we can provide optional irrigation and cover systems. The irrigation system can work from either a water butt or an outside tap, and if you put it on a timer, you can be sure that your plants are getting watered, even if you're not there to do it yourself. The covers help save time by protecting your plants and giving them the best possible conditions for growing into strong and healthy produce.
Q. Why does a Home Grown Revolution bed cost more than the kits I see advertised in various gardening publications?
A. Our installed beds do cost more, because we come out and build the beds for you. All our labour is included in the price. Essentially, we are providing a landscaping service at a fraction of a landscaper’s price. In addition, we use quality materials, not least the sleepers, which are incredibly long lasting, and won't fall apart and rot two years down the line. It's not just a few planks nailed together.
Our kit beds are a comparable price to similar kit beds on the market, although it’s worth noting that very few offer 75mm / 3in width of timber to create their beds. Factor in the frames and irrigation which are part and parcel of the kit and actually we believe we offer very good value for money.
A. There are many advantages to using a raised bed:
Q. Why are raised beds so much better than just planting straight into the ground?
Q. How much work do I need to do to get the site ready for you to build me a bed?
A. We are happy to dig up turf and do a certain amount of ground preparation. However, we won't dig up concrete or paving stones, neither will we clear scrub. Ideally, you'll provide us with clear, level ground and we'll provide you with a beautiful vegetable bed, ready to use, in a matter
of hours.
A. Yes, most do. But the azobe sleepers for our installed beds are untreated, won't leach chemicals into the soil you're growing your vegetables in, and won't give you a sticky and tarred backside if you decide to sit on them for easier gardening. We use untreated oak for our oak kit beds and the pine we use in our pine kit beds has been treated with water-based fungicides and insecticides to help preserve the wood. We do not use arsenic-based preservatives.
Q. What if I only have a small garden? Will a Home Grown Revolution bed fit?
A. Our standard installed beds are 4m x 3m (including pathway of 15cm). Our kit beds are 2.5m x 1.5m. We can however, make our beds longer or shorter, although we wouldn’t advise making them any wider, as accessibility then becomes an issue. If you do have a small garden yet want to make the most of it, it’s still worth talking to us.
Q. I don't know the first thing about growing vegetables, isn't it going to be too difficult?
A. No! You just have to get started. The more you do, the more you'll want to do. So you might make a few mistakes and plant some crops at the wrong time, or weed out seedlings instead of weeds, but we've all done it. A Home Grown Revolution bed can take away many of the perceived difficulties, especially if you use the covers and the irrigation. Anyway, we can give you lots of advice, and point you in the right direction. MORE...
A. Yes, as long as your bed has the same dimensions as a HGR bed. We will provide you with detailed instructions of how a Home Grown Revolution covering system can be incorporated into your existing bed.
Q. I have mobility problems. Can you build the raised beds higher?
A. Yes. We can build our installed beds 2 sleepers high, to a height of 50cm.
Q. Do I have to have the path around the installed beds?
A. No, you don't and we will be happy to provide you with a quote for a bed without the surrounding path. But do bear in mind the advantages: it looks really good and is a great way of a) further eliminating weed creep, and b) making it easy to get around the garden especially in wet and muddy conditions. If you would prefer bark instead of gravel then we can provide that. If you would like to have the immediate outside of the beds paved then we can put you in touch with a company who does that for us. We can quote for beds without the surrounding paths, but you'll find that they're not that much cheaper.
Q. Don't sleepers seep tar and chemicals into the ground?
John and Elizabeth R, Cambridge
wonderful...nothing has been eaten by the birds
this year, so more for us!
We enjoy sitting on the sleepers as we work
and the nets you provided have been
THE SPECIALISTS IN RAISED VEGETABLE BEDS
Q. Can you supply the covering system on it's own as I've already built my own beds?