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What soil for raised bed?

14 years ago

Starting a raised bed to transplant peppers in and wondering what soil to use? I was thinking a mix of promix and leafgro, and fertilizing with neptune fish/seaweed?

Any suggestions?

Thank you

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Comments (3)

smokemaster_2007
14 years ago
People who I know have raised gardens started out with topsoil mixed with compost from the city(free) thats made from any thing they collect in the trashcans for grass cuttings etc. and street cleanup-tree trimmings etc chipped up.
You have to screen it because there is a lot of broken glass in some of it.
They usually start soil prep in the fall.

Mix in compost,manure etc. and let it set all winter then turn it over before planting in the spring.

A lot of them half empty the beds and add the compost each year.Some empty them completely and use that soil for a compost pile for the next year.
They end up having 2 batches of soil going at the same time.
One in the raised beds and the last years in a pile to compost stuff in all year long.
Just keep rotating the piles back and forth adding compostable stuff to the pile of last years soil for next season.
I've read that rabbit manure is really good to add to raised bed soil along with mass quantities of coffee grinds that people get from starbucks or resturaunts.
Others go to horse stables and get manure and straw from them to compost.
Some have been known to drive around on trash day collecting bags of grass and leaves from their kneibors houses.
I think there is a forum for composting and square foot gardening(raised beds would be there too I think).
megachili
14 years ago
Interesting....because that is the EXACT combination of stuff I am using: Leafgro + ProMix + Neptune Fish/seaweed. This is the uncomplicated way to do it. It takes no effort or specialized knowledge - you don't have to compost anything or plan or even think about it; you just buy the two bags of stuff and mix it together and then pour Neptune's on it once a week or so. It's very close to square foot gardening. SFG is peat, perlite/vermiculite, compost. Promix is basicaly the first two and Leafgro is the 3rd. SFG is as time-tested an approach as exists, and promix/leafgro does result in productive peppers.

I'm a little fuzzy on whether the Fish/Seaweed can stand as the ONLY fertilizer or if it needs to be combined with something else after transplant. I will probably combine it with TomatoTone, which has more stuff in it.

Leafgro is good stuff. Quite inexpensive, too, I think because it's a university (of Maryland) project - something like $5 per 2 cu. ft. That's cheaper than bags of crap topsoil from HomeDepot. It now comprises around 1/4 of my total garden soil / growing medium, but I intend to get that up to 1/3 or more in the near future. Wait till you run your hands through Leafgro - you will be sold.
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South Alabama climate. Those were whole red oak and white oak leaves. It really amazed me how quickly they disappeared after tilling them in. During the tilling I could see that the tines were breaking them up pretty good, but still, I guess the microbes were really hungry, too. Apparently the time between spreading the leaves and tilling them in was shorter than I recalled: Covered the garden with leaves on 11/27/2017... Leaves set until January 6, 2018... ...when they were tilled in. Then on 04/09/2018 the garden was tilled again and wide rows were formed and peppers and tomatoes were transplanted. Some leaf litter is still seen. This is basically four months from the time I piled over a foot of leaves on the garden until I started planting. You can look a few messages above to see how the garden has grown. The climate does play a big role in what we can do. In a colder climate those leaves would not have broken down as quickly. But, with the heat and moisture (and later some nitrogen applied) they will be gobbled up much quicker than they would be in a cooler climate. What the soil microbes do in one location can be significantly different from what they do somewhere else. :)
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roper2008
14 years ago
You can use all sorts of soils. I usually use compost, not free for me. It's
a lot of work for me to shovel out a 1/2 yard of compost from truck.
Maybe later. I just bought Scott's Garden Soil, 2 cu.ft at $6, mixed in some
agicultural vermiculite. Put in a little bit of Black Cow Composted Cow
Manure and will add Garden-Tone or Tomato-Tone later. In a 4 x 4 raised
bed, I put a lot of my scrapes from my garden in the fall. Kinda like a
small compost pile. Lots of earthworms in there now. I planted 3 tomatoes
in there.

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