For folks who live in urban settings where large trees present the challenge of competing for water, raised wicking beds offer a solution by isolating the growing medium from the competing trees. Last year, we followed the example demonstrated by friends and built our own raised wicking beds, based on the design that they had used. The beds were a great success, and this spring we are adding two additional beds to the four that we built last year. They are pricey - the pond liner is expensive stuff - but they will last for many growing seasons and produce a lot more food than would have been possible otherwise. They are very frugal in water consumption and we were able to use collected rain water for most of the growing season. With more rain water collection capacity that we are adding this year, all of the water that will be required will come from above!! Here is a video that I put together to show how the beds are built.
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