Growing peas / beans in raised bed

[Serendipity]

Can I ask a couple of questions please? I have some climbing peas and several varieties of runner/french beans that I want to grow in raised beds. How deep do you think I should make the beds and also as I will be filling them with compost from the garden centre should I add anything to this such as chicken manure pellets?

I've grown them before at my old house but always direct in to the ground that had already had compost from the compost bin dug in to it. However as we'be moved to a house with a cottage style garden that is mainly gravelled I don't have this option. I do however have a couple of redundant patios, hence the raised beds on top of these.

Thanks x

[Two_Sheds]

Ideally you should have loam in your beds, MPC is a bit fluffy on its own.

This is the Gardeners World advice (Monty Don):
"Long-term potting mixtures should carry a lot of nutrients to help the plant over the course of its life. The Berryfields potting mix is made up of:

2 parts sieved garden compost
1 part leaf mould
1 part loam (good topsoil, not full of weed seeds)
1 part sand or grit

[SarzWix]

Yeah, I agree with T_S, if you're buying bagged stuff to fill them, add a goodly amount of topsoil too, it will retain moisture and nutrients better than MP compost.

[gojiberry]

If you are growing on a patio I would be inclined to go for the reusable planters from a GC as you will get a better depth of growing medium. I think they are about a £5 and will give you almost 12" of depth. Beans will not tolerate drying out so I would put plenty of shredded paper in with the bottom half of the compost.

Ian

[susieq100]

I built raised beds in our garden 3 years ago, before I got my plot, and filled them with a mixture of MPC and mole hill soil! Used to drag the OH off with a plastic dustbin and a couple of spades in the back of the car and go foraging on the verges of back roads. The locals thought we were mad, but it was cheap and lovely soil - sieved by the moles!

[Fred Perry]

My Wife filled a raised bed with shredded paper, kitchen waste, raw horse manure and garden soil, waited a couple of weeks then put her toilet roll peas in, round the outside and across the middle.
We put in stakes about 1m high round outside an strung the stakes very roughly about 100mm,then put fleece around the whole lot.
Last year we had fantastic crop of early peas with no peaworms.
Lernt me lesson..try anything once and dont argue with the boss.
All the best to all,
Fred P

[Fred Perry]

Oh just to add, found that as the soil settled the plants bedded in better naturaly, so we topped off with sived soil from compost heap.
Fred P