What do you fill raised beds with?

[samk1970]

This may be a very stupid question...I have what I think is fairly good soil which I'm very thoroughly weeding & I've bought ready made raised beds, but what do I put in the raised bed (soil-wise)?

I read that for a 1 x 2 metre bed 30 litres of soil improver would be necessary. Would that fill the entire bed? I'm doing it organically so buying from The Organic Gardening Catalogue but each soil improver looks completely different! Should I dig up some of my own soil to mix in with it?

I understand that I should put compost on the very top of whatever fills the raised beds, but otherwise I'm a bit confused!

Can anyone recommend a beginners book for organic gardening please? I have such a multitude of questions I don't want to become annoying on here.

Thanks!

Sam

[Droppey]

I can't help you with your question Sam but I do honestly believe I'll out beat you on asking too many question Think I've beaten you already as I'm a complete novice at all this

[samk1970]

I can't help you with your question Sam but I do honestly believe I'll out beat you on asking too many question Think I've beaten you already as I'm a complete novice at all this

Me too!! Isn't it exciting!!? I want to be out in the garden now! I was out there in the rain earlier, & with sinusitis the 2 days prior to that. Are you doing raised beds? At home or an allotment? What stage are you at?

[selfraising]

I have ready made raised beds because I have clay soil. Because my soil is clay, I have had to use mainly compost to fill my raised beds and then depending on what I grow in it I mix it in with manure. If your garden soil is quite good, I would suggest you mix it in with compost.

[beetie]

Just watched Gardeners World and they recommended 2 parts compost with 3 parts (top) soil!

[samk1970]

I have ready made raised beds because I have clay soil. Because my soil is clay, I have had to use mainly compost to fill my raised beds and then depending on what I grow in it I mix it in with manure. If your garden soil is quite good, I would suggest you mix it in with compost.

Did you test your soil? I might buy one of those kits as my soil does have clay in it, but I thought that would be a good thing!

[rodofgod76]

Not sure about filling it organically, but I built a bed last weekend and just filled it last night. I'm a novice too.

I dug the lawn inside of the bed over, about a spades depth and tried as best I could to get the lawn upside down. Surprisingly, the soil appeared quite good, and not at all as I expected it was. On the freshly turned lawn I forked in around 100 litres of lovely homemade compost, then I filled it with a 50/50 mix of multipurpose compost and Bower's topsoil. It's 8x4 and 10 inches deep, and took 15x25L bags of topsoil and 6x70L bags of compost.

Ohhh it's sooooooooo exciting isn't it? Hopefully the summer isn't a wash out this year!

Not the best it it'll do me!!

[Droppey]

hi Sam the allotment isn't mine but I'm helping this old guy who owns it with it. He can't put much work into it as he's wife has been ill and he can't leave her. So it hasn't been worked on for a while. I honestly haven't done a great deal before today but will get out tomorrow come hell or high water. I've started growing some seeds, have put them in cells and then in a propagator BUT I'm not sure if I've over watered them lol.

I would like to do raised beds but I think that will be my next project after this summer, I'm just going to work on a couple of the beds that are there now, get them all deweeded, remove straw and stones and glass that are in the 2 beds that I'm going to work on and then put in raised beds on the other bit of land in between times then make some for the 2 beds that I'm working on now

Keep me posted with how you do as it's good to hear things from other newbies like myself

[deezyb]

hi - I had bought a ready made raised bed and filled it will multi purpose the first year (2 years ago), but dug in manure in the winter the next year, the following year I put in manures to give the soil a bit if structure. I 'm sure I read that raised beds lose their nutrients totally after 4/5 years...so you need to keep digging in stuff etc.

I've never tested the soil PH...and I feel that most of my veg/flowers grow fine when I just try to replace nutrients gradually!

[Droppey]

I like the look of that raised bed, looks nice gives me ideas for when I plan to make mine - never done anything like that in my life lol - but won't be this side of the summer

[rodofgod76]

I like the look of that raised bed, looks nice gives me ideas for when I plan to make mine - never done anything like that in my life lol - but won't be this side of the summer

Hi Droppey, it's the first time I've ever attempted anything like that too, made ot out of decking from B&Q. Cost around £40 for all of the timber and around £60 too fill it. From what I've seen 1 metre square timber beds cost more than £40 in magazines. Might even make another one for next year.

[rodofgod76]

I read that for a 1 x 2 metre bed 30 litres of soil improver would be necessary. Would that fill the entire bed?

Sam, my bed is 2.4mx1.2mx240mm deep and that has a capacity of 700 litres. 30 litres is nowhere near enough to fill a bed that size IMO.

[madmum23]

Hi Sam. I've just watched GW as I am putting raised beds on my new allotment this year. They recommended that you put cardboard down on the base and then fill with a mixture of top soil, soil improver and compost. But you should put more top soil and soil improver in the beds as these are more beneficial in the long run so I shall be driving to my local refuse centre to buy some bags of soil improver. Hope this helps.

[FionaH]

Not sure about filling it organically, but I built a bed last weekend and just filled it last night. I'm a novice too.

Not the best it it'll do me!!

Thats a really smart looking bed, well done!

[selfraising]

Did you test your soil? I might buy one of those kits as my soil does have clay in it, but I thought that would be a good thing!

Clay is not a bad thing but mine was so compacted and loads of stones in it as well, that I opted to just dig the top bit over which was bloomin hard work and then put raised bed on top.
Clay is good in that it does hold nutrients and for some veg that like water its also good because it does hold water well. I would think you would need to mix it with compost and/or manure otherwise it bakes as hard as rock in the hot weather and seeds would have trouble pushing through plus the water would sit on top. It can also become quite waterlogged further down so if you mix it with something else, it opens it up a bit to allow for drainage.