We have good luck growing grapes on hills with good drainage here. Something I learned the hard way is that the new plants in Kansas like an old hillside made up with what I consider to not be the best dirt. I grew them in the bottoms and quickly learned they don't like their feet wet. Then I added a bunch of aged cow manure and compost to their ground and found they don't care for that when they are small new plants. Then when I tried growing them in old clay/loam with no fertilizer they loved it. I went back two years later and gave them some old cow manure and they now produce gallons and gallons of excellent fruit every year. What everyone told me to do which was give them plenty of fertility and water just didn't work for me. One day I thought about vineyards and everyone I'd ever seen had grapes growing on a hill made up of primarily poor soil. I went home and duplicated that concept and had good luck ever since.

why do you need to raise the bed... what is you normal soil ... it appears... that you have little or no idea what you want to do .. BUT THAT WONT STOP YOU.. lol ... dont get me wrong.. all the power to ya ... but it MIGHT appear that you are starting at a college level course.. with first grade basics ... i suggest.. you take a 10 by 10 foot bed.. in mother earth .. and grow some things... a nursery bed.. and start gaining some knowledge that way ... and then spend the summer defining what you want.. and need for this raised bed that can cost you a lot of money .... then tell us how big next years bed will be... native soil sunlight hours .. how you plan on raising it ... RRoad timbers... retaining wall ... berm .. etc ... drainage of native soil .. etc.. etc.. etc ... it only took me about 15 years to realize.. you plant this year.. in the bed you made last year .... its a lot less stressful than trying to build a proper bed in a week so you can play in it this year ... all that said... go the the topsoil guy ... have him walk the yard with you ... and get a good mix of topsoil.. it should be blackish .. with some native peat ... screened... and of a fine texture.. when wet... and you try to make a snowball.. it should hold together for a moment or two.. before releasing itself... and it should smell pleasant like a greenhouse ... have him dump a couple yards.. flatten it out.. and plant away... it can be as hard.. or as easy as you want to make it ... ken PS: how do you water on a berm??? it all runs off before it soaks in...

There is a local dairy farm about 20 miles away that has always had a nice pile of aged cow manure. I built many a bed with that stuff. But last year they wouldn't sell any. I'm afraid it's become too much of a commodity. I will call them again next spring. I compost all veg. and fruit scraps, plus coffee grounds and eggshells. My neighbor contributes their food scraps as well to my pile. But I never have enough homedmade compost. When I first started gardening here I tried to get as many compost piles going as I could and turned them often. Then I found I was spending too much time in the garden and didn't have time to "maintain" so many piles. We don't have "mushroom compost" around here, but we do have "seafood compost". There are a few facilities that take the waste from the lobster and fishing industry and compost it. Very good stuff, you can see tiny bits of shells in it. I had 12 yards delivered last year when I was building the rose garden. One fall I went to one of the coves where seaweed collects. I hauled as much as I could in trash bags in my trunk. Not a good idea as the bags leaked. I have to know when to draw the line for my garden. Standing on slippery rocks in waist-high water pulling up slimy seaweed, then having a car that smelled like the marsh on a hot day was above and beyond the call of duty. If I don't have a finished pile of compost or manure to dig from, I will buy those bags (20 lbs?) of "composted cow manure" from Walmart or Home Depot. 1/2 to 1 bag worked in to each rose hole. Probably the best thing I do is mulch with finely shredded leaves. You can scrape back the mulch and uncover dozens of worms per sq. ft. everywhere in my garden. It is a lot of work each fall, as we have to collect at least 100 bags of leaves and shred them with the riding mower, then rake them up again and haul them throughout the garden. It takes a good 2 weekends.

Dear Trish! Ouch!!!! I can just see the whole event happening in front of my eyes! Yes, kids can get into the the most interesting situations at times. This little lady also broke her ankle on a swing at school about seven months ago, just a few days before her fourth birthday. So it was the whole process of rushing to hospital and dropping her three-month old baby sister and my eldest off at someone's house along the way while at the same time trying to comfort her and keep all calm. At that time my husband was gone for work so it was quite a challenge. After the whole stint in hospital, we had to carry her around for the whole time while she was recovering as she could not mobilize with crutches (too young ). In the end, she got so frustrated and she started to bum-shuffle, which was hilarious. :-) I found her one day trying to water my pots outside while still shuffling on her hands and buttocks, dragging the hose behind her :-) :-) :-) At least it is a bit easier this time around (that is, after surgery and the visits to the wound care nurse to clean the finger), and I know she is getting better the moment she starts watering the garden, which she has :-). She has a great affinity for soil and dirt and I must just try to keep her away in order to keep the finger clean until it has healed appropriately. Easier said than done :-) Moses and Lisa, I had a good laugh about your initial confusion about the word "kraal" My apologies! One tends to forget that local vernacular is not always known internationally. But well done on your investigations! Lisa, If I remember correctly you also have some Dutch heritage? I initially thought "kraal" might have had its origins in Dutch (where Afrikaans originated) but after reading your posts it struck me that the word might have come from the Koisan or other indigenous African languages - it indeed refers to an enclosure for cattle although, in centuries past, I think it was also used to refer to an area where groups of dwellings of particular tribes were constructed in a circular pattern which were then closed off with thorny branches etc. in order to keep wild animals out. We have so many languages over here and we all eventually "borrow" words from each other so "kraal" is an accepted English word here as it is in Afrikaans (our home language) and several other languages as well :-). One tends to forget that it is not necessarily known internationally. Moses, I think our mushroom compost might be similar to yours although I believe (I stand to be corrected) that we use coir peat instead of peat moss, which is not such a sustainable resource over here. We also have mushroom growers, possibly in greenhouses? They are readily available in our supermarkets although prices can be slightly more expensive at times. I used peat moss for my roses the previous time I amended some garden beds but was not satisfied with the soil quality a year later, that's why I considered the "kraal manure" Thanks to all of you I think I might get the recipe better this time. I really can't wait to get all my roses in the ground. The previous time was a bit easier as I had to start from scratch so I could design everything as I wanted. This time we have moved into a much bigger but older house with a large established garden (although not a single rose apart from 5 iceberg tree roses (we call them standard roses) at the gate. There are many trees providing lots of shade and it is a bit more daunting to think what must be moved / removed/ altered as there is already a basic plan and I don't want to simply redo the whole place right now. :-)