How to Create an Aboveground Organic Vegetable Garden

Choose a site with full sun. Level the ground and lay landscape cloth where the beds will sit and as paths between them. If you have mole or gopher problems, lay chicken wire under the landscape cloth. Place purchased beds on the site or build them yourself. Use cinder blocks, reclaimed lumber, cedar, bricks or similar materials to build beds 12 to 18 inches above ground level. The bed can be any shape, but 4-by-8 feet is standard.

Fill the beds with organic soil. Use your own homemade compost or purchase a soil mix, often sold as three-way mix (loam, sand and compost) or four-way mix (loam, sand, compost and manure). You can also make your own soil by mixing equal parts of organic planting mix and topsoil. Lay 2 inches of bark chips, wood chips, sawdust or straw between the beds on the paths.

Plant seeds for cool-season crops such as lettuce, kale and peas in early spring. Follow the directions on each seed packet, which will tell you how deep and how far apart to plant the seeds. When the weather warms to 55 degrees Fahrenheit at night, plant seeds or starts of warm-season vegetables such as tomatoes, eggplant and squash.

Water seedlings regularly with a gentle spray from the hose or with a watering can. Feed with organic vegetable or all-purpose fertilizer, which comes in liquid or dry form.

After harvesting in fall, plant a cover crop of crimson clover, vetch, field peas or fava beans. In late winter, cut down the cover crop and mix it into the soil to return nutrients for another season of vegetable growing. You can also cover beds with 2 inches of shredded leaves, composted manure or compost to suppress weeds. Mix into the soil in spring before planting.