fire ants/termites I had a termite problem twice in the last 40 years. 1st fix was to create a barrier, this kept them away, however it eventually faded and they came back. 2nd fix, (same company)...$2000 each fix. First episode which was treated by a professional co, was to drill holes inside and outside of our home, and blow in what they called a barrier, didnt kill, just kept them away. $2000.00 for that one.15 years later..their back again.. New treatment and it works. another $2,000 A termite needs to shed to grow, if they do not shed they die a natural death. Tubes are placed in the soil with bait sticks that termites enjoy eating, when termites are detected these bait sticks are removed and special sticks are added into these tubes. They enjoy eating this stuff also. When they go back to their buddies they inform them how delicious this meal is, they all go and eat. When termites eat this material they continue on with their lives, however when it comes time to shed they die, because this material keeps them from shedding. The colony that was here isn't any more. If you use a termite killer, it only kills the termites affected and not the colony, you want to eliminate the colony. I wrote this to explain how termites are now eliminated. I know very about ants, needless to say fireants.. It is my opinion you should try to destroy each colony, you'll never do that by targeting individual packs of ants..

I garden in the only sunny place I have, a narrow strip (10 to 25 feet wide, 250 feet long) along a woodline of pine, maples, oak, etc. Last June I put in a small raised bed, about 16 inches deep, that I put on top of the ground without tilling. I grew decent but not spectacular pepper plants in it. This winter, I changed my garden plan, and needed to take apart my raised box. The tree roots had grown up through the ground and were so thick that after I took the sides off the box, I had a solid cube of compost mix that was so tight with roots I had to use a tiller to break it up, and even then it took a couple of hours to break down a 4' x 7' x 16" cube! It only took 6 months for that to happen! My in-ground beds are a lot easier to manage. I completely remove all the roots when starting the bed (talk about work--that's what i was hoping to avoid when I made the raised bed), then I make sure to go along the tree sides of the beds each year with a shovel to cut through any new roots that have grown back in the bed. I had the same problems with a lasagne bed I also tried last year. I made two bed side by side, one using lasagne methods, and the other tilled with the same quantities of compost added. I grew cukes in both beds, and the tilled beds significantly outperformed. At the end of the season I dug into both beds, and the lasagne bed was heavily rooted from underneath. It my experience, growing near trees has made tilling necessary, regardless of what type of bed or soil improvement I'm using. Cheers! JP

My soil is brick hard, heavy red clay with a thick Bermuda grass lawn. so I wanted to plant in raised beds rather than fighting this soil and invasive grass. I covered the existing sod with 4 layers of cardboard boxes to smother the grass, and put everything on top of that. In the thread "Reheat old pile in new composter??", I posted a comment "Cold vs Hot Compost" where I explained how I simply piled 6 feet of leaves and grass clippings inside my raised beds last fall and left them all winter. By spring I had a foot of rich leaf mold in the 3 raised beds where I planted herbs, tomatoes, and peppers. Last week I was removing a few of the determinate tomato vines that were past their prime and replacing them with some suckers I had removed earlier and rooted in pots. The roots of the old plants I was removing were anchored very well into the clay soil beneath the bed. The earthworms, soil microbes, and plant roots together have already begun to improve the tilth of the hard clay beneath the bed. There was no sign of the grass sod or cardboard boxes; the worms had eaten them all up. Last fall I had originally planned to double dig the area beneath the raised beds, until I found that I could not dig a hole more than a few inches deep. After only 9 months since I piled up the leaves, using only a hand trowel, I was now able to easily dig 6 inches into the original soil beneath the beds. It would have taken a jackhammer to have dug 6 inch last fall. This fall I'm planning to mix in more leaves to compensate for organic matter that has decayed this summer. As soon as my neighbors rake their leaves and put them by the road, I'm planning to drag them home with me to start a 4th bed for strawberries next spring. While double digging beds used to be considered the "gold standard" by which to get great results, new research is increasingly going the other way. I was reading a report on the Rodale Institute's website recently about mycorrhizal fungi and its benefits to crops. To maximize mycorrhizal colonization, their research is showing that you should plant cover crops which you mow down rather than turn under. By disturbing the soil as little as possible and keeping cover crops growing whenever fields are not in production, the soil supports development of more beneficial microbes that maintain the tilth of the soil better than plowing does. I've got a long discussion going about mycorrhizal fungi in the container forum. While soils often contain enough of the fungi so that inoculants are not needed, there has been some debate of whether plants in containers could benefit from inoculation with mycorrhizal fungi. Some said that the high temps in containers would destroy the fungi, but new research suggests the fungi survive the high temps of soil in containers during summer and are a great help to plants in containers during hot weather. Once you establish a healthy soil climate in the raised beds, recent research suggests that the microbes and plants will take over and do everything that is needed to maintain improve the soil beneath the bed as well.

Without extensive soil testing there is really no way to know what contaminants are in the soil there but the odds would favor at least some. So a simple removal of the top 3-4 inches of soil (and the gravel of course) would eliminate most of the issue. Then you can build the beds on the cleaned area and get by with much more shallow beds - 8-10". The alternative would be really deep beds, something like 18-24" but without tilling or turning at least some of the surface and getting rid of at least most of the gravel could still create drainage problems for you down the line. Same issue with using some sort of permanent wood bottom in the beds - that creates serious drainage problems, ponding and pooling of the water and subsequent root rot. As a general rule "leaching" happens down, not up, and plant roots don't generally suck up contaminants unless they are water-soluble. So if this area is the only option then either removing the contaminated soil or at least diluting the contaminants with lots of fresh soil mixed in or sticking with containers would seem to be the only options. Lastly take into consideration which vegetable plants you want to grow. Many, like all the leafy greens, are shallow rooted but if you want tomato plants, peppers, and such they are tap root plants and tap roots can often be several feet long. Hope this helps. Dave