New to the forum - Just wanted to say hi and get some advise.

[7oaksvegman]

Hello all.

I'm new to this forum and already I've found so much useful information. We are also new to growing our own and had surprising success this year with peas, sweet corn , tomatoes and spuds, not to mention immeasurable amounts of fun along the way.

We have a small plot at the end of our garden at about 6m x 6m into which I made 3 raised beds, which were great but now we have the bug I'm going all out and making some bigger better and more permanent raised beds.

What I'm a little lost with is the cost of filling my beds with good healthy soil that's going to grow next years crop.
my new beds are going to be 4m x 1m x 0.5m into which I need to add soil, but I was amazed at the cost of good soil and compost.

My plan is to get some average everyday topsoil from a builder friend of mine and slowly add it to my raised beds as and when it gets delivered to me (every week to 10 days) to which I thought I could add the waist bedding from next doors rabbits and the odd bag of horse manure from the local stables along with the waist veg matter from indoors.

I was hoping that doing this over autumn and winter will give me a good healthy soil/compost to plant into next year.

Am I completely wrong with this?

Any advice would be very much appreciate.

James

[Yasai]

Hi James

Welcome to the vine This is my first year of gardening too and I too have caught the bug. I envy you having so much space to plant in but, yeah, filling beds can get quite costly. There's a lot of info on here though about cheaper ways to go about it. You'd be hard-pressed to find a cheaper method than Two Sheds; she filled hers up at no cost at all with leaves, cardboard, grass clippings.... Not sure how long it all takes to break down though. And I found out on here that, depending what is sprayed on the grass, horse manure may contain a chemical which will kill all your plants. Can't remember the name of it; do a search for manure.

Unfortunately, I haven't got time to search for links but hopefully someone will be along to point you in the right direction.

Anyway, good luck with it all. Let us know what you decide on...

[veggiechicken]

Hi James and welcome!!
The thing about raised beds is.......how high do you want or need, them to be!! Obvious I know, but, most people will start by growing in the soil they have, with or without a framework around it to mark out the bed. Over time, the bed is topped up with compost, cardboard, whatever you can find and the height of the bed increases. No need to rush to get it perfect from the outset.
One simple way to gain soil is to dig out the paths between the beds and move that soil into the beds - a sunken path in effect
Whatever you do, enjoy your gardening

[Bill HH]

Firstly welcome, you will love it here. Secondly I think the beds you are planning are too high at .5 of a metre, Unless its for show carrots or other long roots its not needed. Halve the height and halve the cost immeadiately. Then use lots of stuff at the bottom that is very cheap, cardboard/ newspapers to supress weeds, then hay or straw, your own compost even if its not fully rotted, manure etc, then you will only need 2 or three inches of multipurose comost and soil. Soak it well and cover it for winter and it will rot down nicely, then top it up in the spring. If you spend too much you will soon realise it would be much cheaper to buy the veg.

[7oaksvegman]

Hi Yasai,

Addictive hobby isn't it.....but so rewarding.(even if things don't grow).

Thank you for your message,ill defenitly be researching the spray they use,thanks for letting know.

[zazen999]

It is called aminopyralid. I would also suggest having shallower bed sides, we don't even have bed sides, we took 29 2m long beds out this last year and we just mound the soil up. Gives you more flexibility that way. We change the bed shapes when we need to as well.


Sent from my iPhone using Grow Your Own Forum mobile app

[Bigmallly]

The cheapest way to fill your beds by far is accessing aminopyralid free manure as it will almost be free. There is some info below & a test you can carry out.

manure_contamination

Sorry, excuse my ignorance, welcome to the vine...........

[Vegpatchkid]

If there's room in the garden, you could dig a pond and use the earth from that. Great for frogs and other wildlfe that could eat some of the slugs that would've eaten your veg.

[7oaksvegman]

Firstly welcome, you will love it here. Secondly I think the beds you are planning are too high at .5 of a metre, Unless its for show carrots or other long roots its not needed. Halve the height and halve the cost immeadiately. Then use lots of stuff at the bottom that is very cheap, cardboard/ newspapers to supress weeds, then hay or straw, your own compost even if its not fully rotted, manure etc, then you will only need 2 or three inches of multipurose comost and soil. Soak it well and cover it for winter and it will rot down nicely, then top it up in the spring. If you spend too much you will soon realise it would be much cheaper to buy the veg.

Thank you for the welcome and great advise.

Ive just been out in the garden and had a think about your suggestion. I agree that if I halve the height I can cut the cost....but then I realised if I halve the height and still use the same materials I can double the growing space!!!! excellent!!!

may have to post some pics so people can see how much of a mess im making.lol


james.

[7oaksvegman]

If there's room in the garden, you could dig a pond and use the earth from that. Great for frogs and other wildlfe that could eat some of the slugs that would've eaten your veg.

Hi Vegpatchkid,

Great idea and believe me ive been try to get permission from the boss for a koi pond but apparently " I need to think about the kids".

Great advise though.

[djhs196]

Welcome aboard!

If it were me (and actually, having just finished buying a new house last week - it will be in a few weeks) I've skip the sides for the vegetable and put 4 to 5 inches of greenwaste compost or compost / manure straight on the top of the grass - see the bottom of this Charles Dowding's blog page for pics as an example.

I don't go down the digging route if I can help it!

What sort of costs were the soil / compost were you looking at? Buying in bulk rather than smaller amount is certainly more cost effective.

Although you can pick up free horse manure direct if you want to, my Nissan Micra doesn't fit much in, and so delivered around here 3 tons (3 cubic meters) is £40. Greenwaste soil improver / compost likewise is mainly delivery cost and around £25 to £40 per ton delivered. For 18x18 feet (pretending there are no paths) you'd need about 4 tons for 5 inches. Without sides to the beds, that would be the only cost tho.

I've did the same earlier to an allotment plot:


https://twitter.com/sweetpeasalads/s...608320/photo/1

Here I put 3 tons of horse manure on top (just an inch or two for a whole allotment plot) and the photo is a comparison from Feb to August earlier this year. I'll be doing it again for the new house's garden in a few weeks straight on grass.

It's another idea for you anyway - hope it helps!

[Bill HH]

Hi Vegpatchkid,

Great idea and believe me ive been try to get permission from the boss for a koi pond but apparently " I need to think about the kids".

Great advise though.

Not sure you wouldnt be opening yourself up for child abuse charges, keeping kids in water is probably breaking some law. Definately go for the fish. You may have your heart set on Koi but when I looked into it and spoke to a few people they advised having shabumkins. Koi eat all the plants so your pond ends up a sterile tank, Shabumkins dont touch the plants. Ok they dont grow as big but you dont really want a 30lb Koi in a tiny pond.

Going back to the raised beds have a look at this.

No dig beds (A must if you dont like weeding) - YouTube

Oh and keeping fish is probably one of the best educational projects for children (good tak to take with the boss)

And the raised beds in vid above are only about 4 inches high, mine are made from old decking boards and I have one on top of the other so its about 8 inches high.



Whether you use boards or nothing is a matter for you and the circumstances of your plot, I have a small garden and need to keep it quite tidy, no sides to the beds would mean soil all over the paths. i also like the look of em.

[WPG]

That's a lovely looking garden Bill

[Glutton4...]

Hello, and welcome to the Madhouse!

[Bill HH]

That's a lovely looking garden Bill

Thats very kind of you, had I know I was going to take a picture I would have swept up!