Ideas for keeping moisture in raised beds?

[Bex2012]

Well the title says it all really! Ive got a load of raised beds filled with a mix of Jacks Magic, Thatchers Gold compost, Verve compost and top soil. I know the idea of raised beds is so that they drain well, but mine seem too dry - I can water, and the next day its like the compost has just come out of the bag, its bone dry. Any ideas on how i can keep moisture in? Would mixing in some vermiculite help?

[maverick451]

I found with my raise beds because there is so much compost in there it took a good few months of watering for it to fully saturate, at the start the water just seemed to go straight now.

now a year later I hardly ever have to water, maybe once a week.

Vermiculite would help but its expensive

[Bex2012]

Thank you, so you think I should just give it time? I have got a bag of vermiculite in the shed, but nowhere near enough to do eight raised beds!

[Bigmallly]

After watering, put a layer of mulch over the top to stop evaporation. The mulch will also absorb some of the moisture but release it back into the soil slowly. I use woodchip.

[Kirk]

Likely manure is the easiest. Compost we buy is really little more then an inert medium that offers support to the plant, the "growing" stuff is the fertiliser that they add. Hence the reason to add more as time progresses.

The top soil you added or had was it reasonable? Only ask as one bag of stuff I bought was more like a sand mix and there was zero chance of it holding water and when dry it set like concrete, roots had no chance. That was supposed to be "Potting on compost". Better use would have been for building a wall.

As implied previously time and organic matter are it seems the way to achieve it.

[skeggijon]

adding some farmyard manure to the bed helps it to retain moisture - and like BM said, sticking a mulch on top helps to keep it there.
If you don't have access to a friendly cattle shed then you can buy bags of manure from BnQ, BnM's, etc for about a fiver - expensive if you have a large area to cover, but not too bad if you're just sticking a bag in a bed at a time.

[donksey]

You can buy large bags of composted horse manure at 4 for £10 at my local garden centre.
I dug it in the ground last spring and grew carrots the same year, so it's well rotted.
I find it holds moisture better than compost, although magic jacks is about the best for that.

[ESBkevin]

Mulching is the name of the game. Thick mulch and keep topping it up with grass cuttings, wood chip, straw, whatever.
You could try sheet mulching too, put down a sheet of cardboard, cover in woodchip, wet it, cut a hole and plant through, puddle it in and thats it.

You might also look into the hugalkulture method, people using it claim little or no fertiliser or watering!

[vixylix]

well at least you know drainage isnt an issue!

I really (and I mean really) watered my raised bed a few times when I first filled it. There's a lot of soil in there to get wet! Since then only the top few cms / inches get dry - the rest stays lovely and perfectly damp pretty much all the time.

I think mulching will help in the long run but you need to make sure you've got the soil sufficiently wet in the first place first