Raised Beds

[davidgraham5]

Hello

I am completely new to the forum and vegetable growing for that matter. I have done some research on raised beds. I have built my raised beds 5ft x 3 ft by 11 height but considering making these higher. Basically what I want to know is do i need to lift the turf, place my raised beds on top of existing soil and fill raise beds with new soil or can I just put the raised beds on the grass with some polythene or something down to separate from garden soil and purchased soil. Hopefully that makes sense!

I apologise if this is in the wrong section.
.

[RedThorn]

Hi and welcome

If it were me, I'd take a spade and lift the sods with the grass in it put to one side upside down and layered in a pile and let it compost down and fill the bed

[Dorothy rouse]

The other thing to consider, if you make your beds too high, you need more to fill it.

[Two_Sheds]

5ft x 3 ft by 11 height

Not sure what that means .... 11 height?

Some thoughts:

- raised beds are good if your soil, or your bad, is bad. Otherwise, use the soil as it is
- the deeper they are, the more soil you need to fill them, and the more expensive
- the weight of soil can push out the walls if they're too high. My 2ft deep bed is collapsing

[RedThorn]

I assumed 11 was in inches...


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[rustylady]

Hello David. Welcome to the forum.

First of all, why do you want raised beds?

If you are determined to have them, I would take the turf off the area that will be covered by the bed, loosen the soil underneath, place the turf upside down on top of that and then top with imported soil / compost / manure. There is no need to separate the soil in the bed from the soil below it, certainly not with plastic.

[Veggielot]

A lot depends on what you mean by raised beds. Most people I know only don't have beds more than a foot tall. Unless you want/need togarden without bending then I wouldn't bother making them higher.

[davidgraham5]

Hi all

Thank you very much for the replies.

Please see link to what i mean by raised beds

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=ra...2F%3B800%3B555

I was told to make them 11inches in height as I need that amount of depth if I want to grow root vegetables. I thought by seperating the exisisting soil and the new soil added to the raised beds would mean I have clean good soil as the soil thats currently there is new but full of stones, rockes etc...as I just replaced the back garden and returfed everything. I did not know I would be using my garden to grow vegetables at that point as I was holding out for allotment which I cant get as too long waiting list.

So basically just trun over the grass I have and use that for the base of my raised beds and fill raised beds with soil, compost etc

Sorry for late reply...I did not receieve notification that I had replies! #Is there an App for this site?

Also, does anyone have any growing charts for scotland? What to grow and when? I have a book and although its uk, I would imagine I need to consider scotland weather!!!

Thanks everyone

[Mumbles]

There's an app for iPhone not sure about android though. The only annoying thing about it that I've found is it doesn't sync with the website so if you read something on your phone it'll still be marked as unread on the computer and vice versa


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[davidgraham5]

Thanks Mumbles. Will check it out!

[Bren In Pots]

Also, does anyone have any growing charts for scotland? What to grow and when? I have a book and although its uk, I would imagine I need to consider scotland weather!!!

Thanks everyone

David on this site :-

First and last frost dates for towns and cities in the UK and USA

you can get your first and last frost date then any growing info on their site relates to your area.

[davidgraham5]

Thanks Bren