My grandma was right about not using raised beds for everything

She told me at her garden in Vermont last fall that growing carrots in a raised bed is a waste of time, and after I pulled up 20 bent and forked ones from my own bed, I finally get it. Has anyone else had way better luck just planting root veggies straight in the ground?

3 comments

3 Comments

lee_grant971mo ago

Yeah, that "bad dirt" comment is exactly what my buddy Mike found out the hard way. He spent all spring babying a raised bed with the perfect mix and still ended up with carrots that looked like they'd been in a fight.

perez.barbara1mo ago

Hold on, is this really that big of a deal? I mean, yeah, if you cram carrots into a shallow bed with rocks and heavy soil, they'll fork. That's just bad dirt, not a problem with raised beds themselves. I built my first bed with a mix of sand and compost and my carrots came out straight as arrows. Maybe your grandma's just got hard Vermont clay and never bothered to fix it.

william_miller1mo agoMost Upvoted

Don't you think Mike just got unlucky with his mix? I feel for him, @lee_grant97, because sometimes no matter what you do right the soil just has a mind of its own.