Originally Posted by Maggie123
I have had raised beds for years and the general mix Mel recommend is fairly common in raised bed gardening. Truly, the mixture needed depends on where you live. The primary objective is to keep the soil from compacting so your crops can grow...spread their roots so to speak. Till that bottom to try and kill any weeds and grasses growing and lay garden cloth to inhibit any further growth. You will need some additional additives besides your compost and I have found potting soil works great as well as the bagged raised bed soil. One thing I did was put red wigglers (worms) to help keep the soil from compacting.

I am pretty much organic and even with raised beds still pull weeds occasionally. My beds are considerably taller than yours, thus not as many weeds. I have one short bed about the height of yours and have more problems with weeds in it. Even so, you have less problems than in ground gardens do. The black plastic over them is a good idea to help.

If you add fresh manure, make a tea and water with it. Fresh manure is hot and can burn your garden. It needs to lay out for a time to mellow. Know several who swear by gin trash too but I have never used it personally. I redress my beds annually with about the top three or four inches of soil. By the time things settle and you pick crops, you tend to lose a few inches each year.

Also, remember to rotate your crops so the same plants are not in the same beds annually. Lastly, ants tend to be a problem with raised beds, so pay attention to that. Wishing you great success. There are a few threads around showing my beds. Fortunately, I have had great success and hope you do too. One last thing...your pics look a bit on the shady side, so be aware of how much and where your sun shines and plant accordingly.



Thanks for the advice and well thought out response.

I think I am fortunate in that the dump truck load of compost that I bought and have now put in the beds appears to be really good soil. It also appears, based on my observation, to already have a healthy population of earth worms in it as well.

I went to Lowes and bought a bale of peat moss and 2 bags of manure to amend each 4'x8' bed. (4 bales and 8 bags total.) I still need to find a good source of vermiculite on Friday and then I'm going to get them all mixed up and ready to plant some stuff as early as February. I'm probably going

In all honesty, I almost feel like I have bit off a little more than I can chew with 4 - 4'x8' beds. I drew up some plans of each bed:

One bed is going to be entirely herbs
One bed is going to be entirely salad stuff.
The other two beds will be all kinds vegetables.

When you start planning the thing out, using the Square Foot Garden recommended plant spacing, it's kind of daunting when you realize that you can grow 16 carrots in one square foot. I probably should have started with just one or two of the beds, but it is what it is, and it will be a fun learning experience.