A nursery bed becomes a trial garden, an area where plants are tested for being pest free and not harming plants in your regular garden. It can be used for evaluating plants for consideration in your permanent garden. Some of the features of the plants in your nursery bed that you might study when deciding on whether to add them to your regular garden are the size, the flower, the color and the growth habit of a plant.
Plants in a nursery bed can also be ones that will find a way into the permanent garden at a later date. Divided plants, seedlings or cuttings that were taken from larger plants can be in a nursery bed. Sometimes we have plants that are not ready for the permanent bed, so they can temporarily be planted in the nursery bed.
Vegetable gardeners can put a nursery bed to good use. With succession planting, there can be a continuous crop of fresh vegetables by sowing seeds in stages. In the main garden as one crop matures, the seeds planted in the nursery bed will produce plants ready for transplanting to the main garden as the first crops in the main garden are finished.
Preparing a nursery bed is the same as preparing a permanent bed. The design of the nursery bed need not be a fanciful shape; nor do the plants have to be arranged in an aesthetically appealing fashion. Place out of view from the main gardens, or a nursery bed can be located near a garden, or it can be at the side of a building such as a garage, a garden shed or near a garden. Two points to keep in mind when locating the nursery bed: the amount of sun the plants will require and how accessible the nursery bed is.
A nursery bed can be any size. Build it on free draining soil. For soil heavy in clay, a raised nursery bed is recommended. A mixture of coarse, lime-free sand should be added to the clay soil. Test the soil after a heavy rainfall to see if the soil clumps up when you handle it; if it does, add more sand. To hold the sand in place, enclose the entire sand bed with edging boards. This will keep the plants neat and reduce the effect of drying winds. Add a covering layer of water-permeable woven fabric to prevent sand erosion and reduce watering.
A nursery bed offers the gardener many opportunities to benefit the main garden, and it can provide a learning tool to help improve your main garden.
