Written by David W. Sams, Pueblo County Colorado Master Gardener

When my wife and I arrived in Colorado in 2021 we found it to be a very difficult place to garden. Our soil was heavy clay and the pH was higher than anyplace we had ever lived. The rainfall was very low and the sun was intense. Winds were frequently very strong and spring hailstorms were followed by summer grasshopper plagues. We could have given up gardening but we chose to set about determining how to control the above problems. We eventually found that covered raised beds can be used to control nearly all of these problems and that raised beds also have other advantages as discussed below.

Build and cover your raised beds as follows:

Mark off 4-foot-wide raised beds if you will be able to work them from both sides or 3-foot-wide raised beds if they will be accessible only from one side. Build the beds with sides of metal, wood or 8 X 16” concrete building blocks. Metal stock tanks can be used as instant raised beds. Twelve-inch-deep beds will allow adequate root growth of many plants but if you make some beds 20 inches high you will be able to sit on the edge of the bed as you garden which can be an advantage as you age. Disadvantages of 20-inch-high beds are that it takes a lot of material to fill them and they dry out rapidly frequently requiring supplemental water. You can fill your beds with many materials having the desired texture, structure, pH and nutritional content. I use one third aged horse manure, one third ground hardwood bark sold as raised bed or planting soil and one third better material containing perlite and/or vermiculite as well as coir or peat and additionally added nutrients. I layer these materials feathering them together a bit. Realize that settling and decomposition will require additions to the planting media in future years.

There are several ways to cover raised beds to control wind, hail, grasshoppers and intense sunlight. One simple way is to drive a 2-foot length of rebar 20 inches into the ground at each bed corner and to arch 1-inch pvc pipe or electrical conduit diagonally between the corners of the bed. The arches can then be covered with shade or hail cloth held with clips made for this purpose and weights such as boards or bricks along the edges. Disadvantages of this system are reduced visibility and the necessity for temporally removing the cover from crops requiring pollination and harvest such as cucumbers and squash.

A more useful and attractive raised bed requires a 6-foot fence on one side. Concrete reinforcing wire or wire from a cattle panel is inserted into the planting material at the front of the bed and arched up to a point near the top of the fence where it is attached with staples. A roll of shade or hail cloth can then be attached to the top of the fence and lowered over the bed as needed.

The best cover for raised beds requires tall poles to hold a protective cover well above the bed. One can walk under the cover and see what they are growing at all times. The cover can be put in place at the beginning of the growing season and left in place for the summer or even for several years.

Drip irrigation or soaker hoses work well on raised beds to supply needed water efficiently. Leave a hose end sticking out from under any cover to attach a water supply.

With the use of covered raised beds such as the above, gardening in our climate assumes new possibilities. The variety of possible plantings is increased to the point where even small fruit trees can be grown under cover as well as plants requiring neutral or even acid soil. Threats from wind, hail and even grasshoppers are largely neutralized. Gardening becomes much more enjoyable and gardens are more productive. Most importantly, one need no longer worry about wind, hail and unfavorable soil and water conditions destroying one’s garden.