Our farm has used a system of raised beds, drip irrigation, plastic mulch, and fabric row cover tunnels since 1986. During those years we’ve used that system for frost protection, weed control, irrigation, enhanced microclimate, moisture retention, and insect control for 1,000-4,000 feet of warm-season and brassica crops.

There is tractor-drawn equipment to install most of this system. When we decided to begin using it, however, we had already purchased a fairly expensive walk-behind roto tiller. So we decided to raise the beds, lay the drip line and plastic mulch, put in the hoops, and roll out the row cover by hand. Although it has been very labor-intensive over the last 15 seasons, we’re pleased by our decision and would not consider buying machinery to do the work.

One of the principle reasons – besides stubbornness – that we’ve been pleased with our self-designed machinery-less system is it gives us flexibility to hybridize. This season we have 600 feet of muskmelon, watermelon, dry flowers, eggplant, and bell peppers that utilize the entire system – from raised bed to fabric row tunnel. But we also have 120 feet of tomatoes and brassica that don’t use the raised bed and plastic mulch. With these crops we use straw mulch over the drip line. We also put row tunnel over 300 feet of direct seeded squash. Our idea is to protect the emerging squash from the ravages of a cucumber beetle infestation we’ve experienced the two previous seasons. But the squash bed is not raised, doesn’t have plastic mulch, and will be irrigated using overhead sprinklers.

We also like the non-mechanical approach because it allows us to reuse much of the material a second and even a third season. For years we’ve reused the fabric row cover for two to three seasons. After it’s too shredded for use over the hoops it can be used again to protect crops like beans or grapes from late frosts. I’m embarrassed to admit that it has been only in the last three seasons that we’ve discovered we can reuse some of the black plastic mulch for a second and occasionally a third season.

Let me explain how our hand operated system comes together. Like all agriculture there’s really no starting or finishing point. But our first spring task is to pick up last seasons plastic mulch. Before we begin reusing it, there was a time that I’d pick up mulch in the fall if there was time. But if you want to reuse the plastic it’s best to let the winter do its work on the melon vines and other plant material before you try and pick up 300 feet of three foot wide plastic mulch in one piece. Regardless, picking up mulch is messy, painstaking work. I’m afraid to admit Janice, my gardening partner of many years, does it. She has more patience. As she picks it up she puts it in a feed sack and makes sure that it’s more or less piled into the bag so it will come out end first and in an orderly and untangled way. When the bag is full she labels it by noting how many pieces are in the bag and, roughly, how long they are.

When the plastic mulch is being removed it’s easy to think, ugh – what am I doing with all this disgusting petro-byproduct? After 16 seasons that remains a valid question for me. Part of the answer is that under the mulch is a weed-free, moist, and biologically active zone of soil that has required no tillage since the plastic was applied. Under that plastic there has been little or no soil compaction and the soil quality is superb.

So, we proceed. Our garden is set up in fourteen 300-foot rows. The rows are largely permanent and set up on six-foot centers. With our crop rotation it is rare that a row would get raised and covered two years in a row. So we have to till and raise the beds next. Often a bed to be raised this season will have been fallow last season. Our system of fallowing and rotation often lets quack grass creep into fallow rows. So this bed to be raised may have perennial grass in it. This season we took a 75-foot grassy raspberry row and raised it and covered it. The plastic will hold the grass in check nicely.

Raised beds by hand
The tools for raising a bed are simple. We use our garden tiller to make a pass or two through the 2- to 3-foot-wide bed. Then, using a pickup truck or hand cart, we generously compost the bed and once again till to incorporate the compost. Next, using a steel rake or a three-pronged hoe we bought from Smith and Hawken nearly 20 years ago, we pull a few inches of soil from one side of the bed into the middle. That leaves a mound of dirt 4 or 5 inches high and as long as the bed. Then we repeat the process on the other side of the bed by raking more dirt to the center. When we’re done the mound in the center may be 10 inches high.

The next step is to go back over the top of that raised mound with the rake and gently level the top. Depending on how much dirt you’ve mounded up you should end up with a fairly flat bed between 14 and 20 inches wide and 6 to 8 inches high.

I don’t believe we used any new drip line – we use the thin-walled T-tape – last year. We buy splices and patch the older lines where the pocket gophers have bitten into it. Then we lay two lengths of line onto the surface of the bed. We only connect one of those lines for widely spaced crops like melons. The second line is a back-up. For peppers and flowers, because there are two rows in each bed, we connect both lines. If we do use new drip line we put the spool on a pipe and mount the pipe on our garden cart. Keeping the cart stationary, at one end of the row, we walk the line to the other end.

Now we lay the plastic if we’re going to use it. If we are going to use old plastic one of us pulls 10-15 feet out of the bag after we’ve anchored the end – with a little dirt – at the beginning of the row. Then one person stretches and holds the plastic taut and the other person anchors it with dirt. Once the two ends of that section are anchored the stretcher finds two or three strategic spots along the length of the section and stretches the plastic as wide as possible. The edges of those spots are anchored. Now both people can lightly anchor the edges of the entire, and nicely tightened, section. This process is repeated the entire length of the bed. As we go we remove any debris – corn stalks, broccoli roots, particularly noxious grass rhizomes – that prevents the smooth laying of the plastic. We also regularly adjust the drip line so it’s tight and lying where we want it. We’ve noticed that old plastic, with its randomly placed holes, requires a little less irrigation. An inch of rainfall will likely soak a bed covered with somewhat tattered old plastic. Most everything runs off of new plastic.

If you’re using new plastic put a pipe through the card board tube the plastic is on. Then two people can roll out sections of it. The same tightening and anchoring system is used as with old plastic.

Hoops for row cover
Next we put the hoops in. Our hoops are made from the wire rural electric utilities used for overhead transmission lines. We picked up a lot of the stuff cheap when the electrical co-op went underground with its wire. We cut the hoops about 3- to 4-feet long with a bolt cutter. Tomatoes and broccoli need big hoops. Melons can get by with shorter ones. In the bed the hoops are 2 feet apart. The ends are poked through the edge of the plastic mulch and into the ground.

We transplant and put the row cover on as one step. We’ll put out 15 or 20 feet of transplants and then immediately cover them with row cover. We use a sharp stick to poke holes for transplants into new plastic. Before you transplant though, you might want to run your tiller along the edges of the bed. Having loose soil to anchor the edges of the row cover makes life easier than having to scoop compacted soil for 300 feet. That loose soil is also nice for putting little dirt collars around each transplant. Those dirt collars protect any delicate leaves that would otherwise come in contact with the quickly hot plastic. When we come to the end of a piece of row cover we attach it to a hoop with clothespins. The beginning can be joined at that hoop also.

I am sad to report that everything I’ve ever grown – from weeds to melons – grows better under this artificial system than it does out in the open. It’s warmer. It’s wetter. The light is diffuse. It’s wind free. It provides four degrees of frost protection. As a consequence we don’t remove the fabric cover until we have to. For melons we wait until the first female flowers show. On tomatoes and peppers we wait until the plants are pushing against the fabric.

Once we take the fabric off we put it right into bags. The sun is hard on it.