raised beds

[claireg82]

My other half has been wonderfully busy and built me the first of my raised beds, for our new garden. Just looking for some advice on where or what kind of soil to buy? would I be ok just buying some soil from a turf supplier?

thanks in advance

claire

[sewer rat]

I'm sure that you will be able to find topsoil cheaper than a turf supplier would sell it to you. Some landscape or even self drive digger operators may have some for sale - as a guide, there is a digger operator / building contractor here who charges £8 / tonne for topsil that has been put through a screener (giant riddle).
When filling the beds, don't forget to add compost / manure as you go.

[Two_Sheds]

I'd just say: beware of buying any old topsoil. Could be full of weeds and horribleness. Definitely add as much well-rotted manure and compost as you can, now and over the coming years.

[chuffa]

I agree with Two Sheds. I got 2 tonn of topsoil from a local guy who said that it had been screened and deweeded. Four months on and i am still sorting out the weeds.

[SlugLobber]

Due to above worries, I bought soil improver and mixed it with compost and manure for my raised bed. It's a very basic affair without sides (potager style) and not mixed very well, but the onion sets seem to be loving it!

[Jimmy]

Depends what you mean by raised beds.
Some beds can be 3 feet off the ground to aid bad backs.
However mine are hardly raised at all.
They are just old pallet wood used to partition the plot into "raised beds". As you cultivate and add last years compost manure etc they will soon start to fill up and become more raised so you may not need to buy soil.
If you are starting from a grassy plot I would
1) Mark off the beds say 3 or 4 foot wide and as long as you want.
2) Double dig. Dig a trench at one end two spades deep. Put the turf off the next row upside down in the bottom and then dig out the second layer onto the top of the turf. This should raise the soil quite a lot.
3) Add any manure compost soil that you want and mix in to top.
4) Make the sides of the bed out of wood, reclaimed if possible and treated with non toxic wood preserver. I use two pallet slats nailed to two stakes made from the centre thick pallet wood. Construct a few of these and then dig them in round the bed.
5) I line my paths with old carpet strips but you can use other stuff such as straw, bark etc.
Instant veg plot ( nearly instant ).
Jim

[zazen999]

I wasn't going to raise my lottie beds at all, until I accosted a man taking a load of wood to the tip.

I found that as you dig it it raises it anyway, as you incorporate more air in. As Jimmy says, you don't say how deep; and his method works wonders. The soil doesn't have to come to the top from day 1, and it will increase as your compost heap builds and you incorporate it in.

We used anything and everything; we brought the contents of our compost bins from our old house, all in plastic bags/containers etc and used that for 4 smaller beds. Someone on freecycle had a load of topsoil so we bagged a load of that up [weed free, luckily], and took out the stones as we incorporated it and that filed a few more. Another year of composting and we have taken home compost to the lottie both in spring when we got it [used it to earth the spuds up] and again a few weeks ago [it will go into the ground as we dig and prepare for next year's spuds].

Plus, I get coffee rounds from Sbucks who are only too pleased to get rid of it bin bag at a time, and this goes straight in or gets added if I am sieving for the root veg beds.

[markinessex]

We put a tonne of top soil from a local turf supplier, a 4 bags of Erin's Well rotted manure. After that had gone in, we grew some green manure and then dug that over.

Currently we are successfully growing some Winter leaves, Onions and Garlic. And yesterday just put in some Peas and Cos lettuce.

I think we were lucky with the quality of the top soil, as we have no problems with weeds at all.