Making Raised Garden Beds

How we make our raised garden beds with our John Deere tractor and plastic mulch layer.
As soon as the ground is thawed and dry each spring, we hook up the “plastic mulch layer” to our John Deere tractor and start to work making the more than 50 beds (each 150-250 feet long) in our 4-acre garden. The rows intended for cool-weather crops are covered with white plastic, while rows for heat-loving plants are covered with the black plastic. The plastic “mulch” comes in special rolls intended just for the machine.
First we stake the drip tape we use for irrigation at the end of the row, then start the plastic rolling. The bed maker digs into the ground, lays the plastic, then covers the plastic back up with dirt as it goes along, with the drip tape coming along below the plastic the whole time. At the end of the row, we cut the drip tape, seal the end, and scoop dirt onto the plastic to keep it from blowing away. And thus, row by row, we make our raised beds!
©Copyright 2010 Front Porch Farm, All Rights Reserved.

[@apaulanarius]

What an awesome piece of machinery. Like they say, If you have the right tool for the job ; it makes the job easy. Nice video job of instruction. Thanks for sharing.

[@teejay622]

What an awesome machine! It has always amazed me how creative and ingenious farmers have always been when it comes to machinery.

[@bigjim5723]

that is some beautiful dirt ur working with, nothing like the road dirt i have here in Pa. i never knew for sure how them machines worked till now. thank u for showing us.

[@FrontPorchFarm]

@TwoHappyChildrenFarm I make all our beds in one direction with the tractor tire in my last furrow so the machine is set up differently on each side, because one cultivator is in the furrow and one is in virgin soil. One thing I can tell you is to set up your cultivator shanks in line with the cover discs at the rear of the bed layer--their job is to loosen the dirt for the discs. Also run your cover discs as close to the raised bed edge as you can without catching the plastic. Hope this helps.

[@aprilreeves1]

Thanks for posting this Front Porch! Great tool. Love John Deere.

[@barneybetelgeuse6273]

Great job fella's, awsome gear

[@luc9999999]

looks like excellent soil

[@DAILEYericCaryUSA]

Excellent video. Thanks. Good luck.

[@TwoHappyChildrenFarm]

Awesome. Thanks a lot. Lots to think about.

[@mgt00656]

very well done

[@pl747]

been there, done that, only with wider beds and two rows of drip tape.

[@pl747]

We do almost the same way. The only thing wrong with the bed fabric is the bugs love to get under it, then they are a lot harder to control. The drip tape works wonderful once you get the pressure regulated right and quit blowing it apart underneath the fabric. It won't stand much pressure.

[@lukejones1244]

What is drip tape, and how does it work?

[@vasutest123]

Does anyone know much per acre this plastic mulching service would cost a farmer if they didn't have this layer equipment?

[@paulcharpentier7095]

This is awesome I grow strawberries and other plants but certainly not on this scale it's a pleasure to see how you guys do it I do have one question though what do you do with all the plastic is it recyclable or how do you get rid of it with all the concern of plastic nowadays the reason I ask this is I would like to try plastic but I don't want to harm the environment either

[@FrontPorchFarm]

Hello Paul, the plastic is recyclable, but finding ag plastic recyclers can be a challenge. There are also biodegradable plastics but they cannot be used for an organic operation.

[@alan30189]

These guys are large-scale farmers. They obviously don't screw around. You can plow your fields with your mule if you want to and plant the old fashioned way. That's your choice. That plastic mulch eliminates the need to weed very much as well as labor and herbicide costs.

[@BryanKale777]

Awesome. . I want a JD and some LAND! Peace UFO 13

[@dragonracer76]

very cool. I've always wondered how this was done

[@alan30189]

I was wondering how you made those nice beds in the prior watermellon video. Now I know. Amazing machine. Must have cost a pretty penny but it does a great job.

[@MustardMonkeyLtd]

nice video, I really enjoyed it

[@soleilinox]

hello. very interesting video. I am astonished you use only one drip tape in the middle but have two rows of holes to plant something in. is it 30CM dripping tape ? is it enough to water all the bed ?

[@lukejones1244]

Do you have a video of you planting into the bed?

[@φύτεψε_τον_κήπο_σου]

Next time When you done and you need to replant how does this plastic staff come off the ground;

[@TommyDaTuber]

How much plastic do you go through in a season?

[@MrJoechristopher]

Whats the spacing between the rows?

[@TwoHappyChildrenFarm]

What setting are your cultivator shanks at/ have a 2600, still working on getting the edges covered nice like yours.

[@bluejfarm9098]

Where did you get that amazing attachment?

[@FrontPorchFarm]

Rainflow Irrigation.

[@IndrajeetKumar-es4ld]

What was the name of the equipment you are using in back of your John deere tractor

[@FrontPorchFarm]

It is a raised bed maker by Rainflow Irrigation

[@hrvojeherceg3009]

I recently found Simply Love Gardening (just google it). it had everthing that i needed in one place

[@dollyperry3020]

Question: Have you tried the red plastic that the catalogs say increase your yields?

[@FrontPorchFarm]

Dolly Perry We haven't tried the red plastic, but we did try the green once and found the weed suppression left a lot to be desired. Since then we have stuck with black, white on black for cool weather crops, and silver for Kales and Peppers.

[@dollyperry3020]

I've heard good things about the red with only the tomatoes...But I'm like you...It's such a risk that I'm not willing to take it!

[@kevreilly7]

safe to say, the average KZbin viewer diesn't have a tractor like that---might as well be watching high speed atom collisons

[@redbug3485]

Is it for strawnerries or watermelons? Maybe something else.

[@FrontPorchFarm]

We plant most of our crops in plastic mulch because of our short cool growing season.

[@robinaugustine0747]

I have 200 acres of land in India for farming and we are using minimal technologies

[@rustybottoms8859]

How much does one of those combi machines cost?

[@FrontPorchFarm]

Check them out at Rainflow Irrigation's web site.

[@expatconn7242]

What is that attachment called ?

[@FrontPorchFarm]

This is a plastic mulch layer, or bed maker. They are produced by Rainflow Irrigation in Pennsylvania.

[@FENDT720vario]

Hello. What is the spacing of watermelons?

[@FrontPorchFarm]

We space the beds about 50'' on center for melons.

[@zaappp1588]

How do you like that 2550?

[@FrontPorchFarm]

We love our bed maker! We literally couldn't do what we do without it.

[@THSurvivalGear]

Good ol' Plasticulture

[@markmoore2064]

whats the name of the implement?

[@FrontPorchFarm]

Plastic mulch layer

[@mikewest712]

I counted 12 near misses.

[@travelinthru9519]

Seems expensive to put plastic down every year that's got to be bad for the environment

[@walterberg8030]

Overkill tractor

[@FrontPorchFarm]

Use whatcha got!

[@LarryPat055]

Quit eating mass produced food then.

[@nkel6111]

the plastic...well you guys are contributing to this nasty product being out there. so maybe you aren't really that visionary.