best filler for raised beds?

[chrissie the chippy]

I was wondering what I should use to fill my raised beds?

I was hoping to get some horse manure and leave them to rot down in rubble sacks until the next planting season kicks off (if I can ), unless I can get some that is well rotted....

Some soil from the garden, sieved well and compost, which would have to be shop bought, unless I can make some in the space of a few month.

Would a goos mix of all 3 be ok? Would it be silly to go mad on horse manure? I was thinking of doing parsnips and carrots in containers....

What would you put in?

[Stacey Steve]

My soil was heavy clay and I added multi purpose compost as I craeted a new bed, to try and break up the consistancy.

Since then I have added what compost has been made in the compost bins plus some sharp sand.

The soil is much easier to work now but I'm intending on adding more multi purpose compost each year (as funds permit).

[hamsterqueen]

Mine were MPC plus topsoil, 2:1 roughly. I added chicken poo pellets this year and also left over compost from containers.

this is my second year with raised beds and I love them. I have 4 now and am thinking of at least one more for next year

[Pumpkin Becki]

I'm on a clay/chalk mix at the lottie, so we opted for raised beds too.

We filled them with a mixture of well rotted horse manure (which also contained quite a bit of wood shavings), shop bought peat free multi purp. and some home made compost. Don't think we added any topsoil (just what we managed to thrash off the turves we lifted), but this may have been a bit of a mistake, as the beds do dry out quite quickly and make a sort of crust on the surface (tricky for sewing delicate seeds into).

As a bed empties, we top up with whatever we can too, shop bought multi purp or home made compost.

I do know that carrots (and parsnips, I think) don't like being on freshly manured ground, it can encourage them to fork into weird shapes, so I'd stick to compost for them.

[annacruachan]

Hi Chrissie.
I grow entirely in pots and use seaweed as a base for all of them with chicken poo pellets where appropriate. Any used compost, my own compost and bought compost fills the pot up to the top. I also use seaweed as a mulch and have had a good crop of almost everything in this, my first year growing this way.

One word of warning: don't use manure of any kind where you want to grow root veggies as it makes them fork.

[Shirley Sherriffs]

I've just created some single depth deep beds on the area that was my now lifted early potatoes I've dug them all over and weed them as the little weeds appear. In the spirit of recycling and using wot I have rather than buying everything, I have decided to use some straw on the bottom of 2 of them and make them my compost bins for the next 6 months covered with a plastic cover. I'll top them up with a little soil now and then to keep the beasties working. My other two huge ones are full up with this years 'stuff' so I'm going to try and see if this works. It should give me some great compost.

[Uncle Albert]

Raised beds on clay myself, and having tried a few mixes (sieved soil, MPC, vermiculite mixes, etc.), the best for me has been home produced compost.
I'm helped by having a very large garden with a lot of trees and a mighty powerful shredder, so I recognise its probably not the solution for everyone, but it provides fantastic nutrients, and massively helps the soil structure.

[oldie]

Many of the no-dig gardeners just put a load of manure/home compost on the top and leave it to overwinter. The worms will pull it all down into the soil. If you are not going to plant/sow anything for several months it doesn't matter if the manure is not fully rotted, just don't try carrots in that area next year.

[rustylady]

Rather than fill my raised beds on the lottie straight away with expensive bought-in materials, I have just constructed a few frames. The 3 sisters bed was raised a bit by the addition of some well rotted horse manure from a friend which was dug in during construction. The asparagus bed was raised a bit by adding home-produced compost last winter, the rhubarb bed similar. My beds are really just marking out areas at the moment, and will hopefully raise by the addition of compost/manure added yearly.