Lazy bed
1398796
206357105
2008-04-17T22:46:18Z
Alan Liefting
36352
-cat
[[Image:Old lazybeds on North Harris.jpg|right|thumb|200px|Old lazybeds on North [[Harris]]]]
[[Image:Ensayformercultivation.jpg|right|thumb|200px|Old lazybeds on [[Ensay, Outer Hebrides|Ensay]]]]
'''Lazy bed''' is a method of arable cultivation. Rather like [[cord rig]] cultivation, parallel banks of [[ridge and furrow]] are dug by spade although lazy beds have banks that are bigger, up to 2.5m in width, with narrow drainage channels between them.
Although it is largely extinct, it is still to be found in parts of the [[Hebrides]] where lazybeds are known as ''feannagan'' in [[Scottish Gaelic]], and the west of [[Ireland]]. In these places, the method used is normally to lift up sods of [[peat]] and apply [[seaweed fertiliser]] (desalinated) to improve the ground. Potatoes were often grown in this way in these regions, until the potato blight ''[[Phytophthora infestans]]'' caused the [[potato famine]] in the Highlands and Ireland.
It was used in southern parts of Britain from the post-Roman period until the post-medieval period, and across much of Ireland and Scotland until the 19th century.
==See also==
* [[run rig]]
* [[foot plough]]
==External links==
{{commonscat|lazy beds}}
*[http://www.geographyinaction.co.uk/Assets/Photo_albums/Five/pages/LazyBeds_jpg.html Lazy beds in County Antrim, N.Ireland]
*[http://www.geographyinaction.co.uk/Assets/Photo_albums/Seven/pages/Glenelly3.html Lazy beds in Sperrin Mountains, County Londonderry, N.Ireland]
[[Category:Landforms]]
[[category:Agriculture in Scotland]]
[[category:Agriculture in Ireland]]