Raised beds have been around since biblical times and can be made from many materials – wood, brick, stone, etc., but there’s now a new alternative that has benefits the others can’t offer. They are called fabric beds and they can give you a faster-growing garden with a bigger harvest than you thought possible.

They are super easy to set up – no assembly of any sort is required. So if you haven’t installed a garden in time for our May 1st Summer planting deadline, don’t stress. Just unfold the material on any level surface, yard, deck or patio, fill with soil, and you have an Instant Organic Garden! The trick is the supports and seams sown into the design that make the fabric garden stand up without any sagging. For hard surfaces like decks and patios, you can place drainage tiles underneath to direct water flow and avoid damage or staining.

As with any raised bed, they eliminate the digging, tilling and weeding of traditional in-ground gardens and they are extremely productive per square foot – perfect for houses with small yards or limited areas of 6-hour sunlight.

The secret is the specially engineered fabric. It’s highly durable, UV resistant, and offers perfect drainage. The fabric allows air to reach the roots. This is very important because oxygen is essential to plant growth and in a traditional raised bed garden, some soils don’t offer good air flow. The fabric also allows the roots to stay cooler. Studies have shown that fabric containers can reduce the root temperature by 30° or more in summer conditions due to evaporative cooling.

Fabric gardens allow for “air pruning.” In pots or planters, plant roots grow up to the edge and start to circle around the inside of the pot or raised bed, where the plants can become pot-bound, resulting in poor growth and an increased likelihood of disease. Often, the gardener must remove a plant from a pot and prune the roots for healthier growth. In a fabric garden the roots grow to the outside edge of the bed, sense the presence of air, and stop growing on their own. The roots reach to the fullest extent of the garden, but don’t become pot-bound.

The fabric is durable and inert. There is no wood to rot or attract termites, no preservatives to leech into the soil. You can move your garden on your property if you decide there’s a better space, or if you relocate, you can take your garden with you. Just unload the soil and fold it up.

I experimented with these fabric beds last summer with great success. I planted two identical tomato transplants – one in a raised bed and the other in a 3’ round fabric bed. They both started off OK, but within a month the fabric garden tomato was out-performing the one in the raised bed by 50%! The plant was healthier, faster-growing and generated more fruit for a longer time.

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