On 8 May the Grayshott Gardeners were treated to an informative and entertaining talk from David Hurrion about gardening with raised beds.

He described how the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, Machu Picchu, Hugelkkutur, straw bale, hot beds, meter square growing, and the African keyhole method were all ancient, raised bed traditions.

David took the audience through the different types of raised beds and described how to make the simple mound bed, how a stone raised bed can add to the attractiveness of a garden and how they can be incorporated into a pond feature.  The advantage of raised beds is that they are good for disabled people, encourage wildlife and are easy to maintain. Herb towers are a good example of a space saving raised bed. One disadvantage of raised beds is that if you do not assemble the bed with the correct compost, topsoil, drainage and aeriation material, they can end up as a compost bin. 

David concluded his talk saying copies of his new book ‘The Raised Bed Book’ were for sale at the front of the hall and he would be delighted to sign your copy.

Davids video on how to build a raised bed is on his YouTube Channel.  You can find a lot of very interesting information on all aspects of gardening on https://www.davidhurrion.com/