Raised beds,

[Worth1]

Recently I had the pleasure of tearing out a raised bed at my house.
I didn’t like where it was so out it went.
I never could figure out why it took so much water to keep plants alive in the thing until I leveled out the soil and found that roots had invaded the bed from a nearby tree.
It was totally congested with them and they had been sucking up all of the water and nutrients from the soil.

I thought I would throw this out there in case someone else might have a similar problem.
A good root barrier might solve the problem.

Worth

[ddsack]

Yes, this is a problem for me as well. We have a nice row of big spruce trees that form a windbreak for our front yard. When we planted them 30 years ago, it was hard to envision that they would ever get so big, or that the roots would travel south into the garden area. I just know which three beds I have to pull roots from each spring (and fall, if I spade up the beds.) I'm not sure what kind of root barrier I could put down, that the roots wouldn't creep under and around through any small gap. My raised bed frames are not very high, so I need to allow for root development room of at least another foot under the frame. The only thing I can think of is to put aluminum screen all along the sides and bottom of the beds -- way more trouble and expense than I care to contemplate. Guess I'll just keep chopping and pulling every spring (as long as my back holds out), but I sure would like to hear anyone else's ideas.

[dcarch]

I use a small rototiller to till down to about 18" every spring. All the other roots from nearby trees becomes compost.

dcarch

[Worth1]

Some cities make folks put down root barriers along the sidewalk to keep trees from busting the concrete.
From what I have seen they go down about 1 foot or so at a right angle to the horizontal surface of the walkway.

Worth