I would concur with gardengal - very good advice. If you have a choice then raised bed is a great option for vegetables. You can be as organic as you want and less work in the long run. You would still need to amend the soil with compost/manure. That Jobe's organic fertilizer works better in the soil. You should mix it in the soil according to the label and leave it for a week or two before planting. This gives all those bacteria a chance to colonize the soil.

Unless you are on gumbo clay or are somewhat physically disabled, there is no need for raised beds. Just make a plain old garden bed if you don't want to spend money on container media. i don't know what the apparent urgency is all about. It's September. The season, even in SoCal, is almost over.

Where do you live? You are starting Tomatoes in Fall so you must be in Florida or California?? I grew great tomatoes in Florida in Earth Boxes. They grew like weeds and I was amazed at the bounty. This is the time of year to plant them in Florida. I just followed the directions on the Earth Box. No problem, not wet at all no matter how much rain.

Jane

Jane, that's interesting about FL. Do you mean planting them out or starting seeds? Here in L.A. we would have problems if we plant out before Feb., but obviously you would want to start them earlier. Of course FL has a few degrees of latitude on us.

Most organic potting soils contain compost, such as Happy Frog, Foxfarm, Espoma ,Dr. Earth, or Hoffman. Which is a great amendment to container culture as numerous studies show how it prevents root rot. Which is a major problem in containers. It solved all root rot issues for me. Not using compost is so 20th century, a very outdated technique best left in the past.

@drew: Can you point to some of those numerous studies? Root rot is prevented by having well draining soil. Compost can loosen clumpy soil, improve drainage a tad bit and be a low-level long-term nutrient source. Most of the soil you mentioned add bark/perlite to improve the drainage and recommend fertilizing regularly. Although I do not use compost in containers, but it has been used in containers in 20th century, 19th century and probably all the back to the Babylon era. Not adding compost is more likely to be a modern invention.

Also looks like the OP is no longer interested in this discussion any more.

What prevents root rot is a rhizosphere that has enough air porosity to make it an inhospitable environ for the fungaluglies that cause root rot. The higher the % of compost in the mix, the more difficult that is to achieve.

Al

gardengal, thanks for that link--very helpful. I haven't yet finished reading it, but from what I can tell, DH and I were about to make a big mistake...and we haven't met our deadline obviously so it may now be too late for the tomatoes...

Hubby has already built a raised bed for me, but it's unconventional. He did it this way because we already had the materials so we didn't need to spend any money, and he wanted it to be mobile (as silly as that sounds, yes, he built a huge raised bed that can be moved around). He built a 4'x10' raised bed on top of a pallet the same size...he will put netting down in the bed to prevent soil from falling out...his plan is to have this raised bed sitting atop cinder blocks...this bed will not be in contact with the ground...

The link you gave me says that the ground acts as a giant wick to soak up excess moisture...neither of us knew that. With DH's design, there is no wick...so does that mean I would need to use pine bark / container potting mix, instead of our garden soil with compost?

Sorry, we are noobs and don't know what we are doing...

Everyone was a noob at some point in time so no need to apologize :-)

I've not encountered a raised bed design quite like yours and I'm sure Al will jump in if I am making erroneous assumptions, but if your RB has no solid bottom - just the netting to hold the soil in - I would treat it just the same as a more conventional, in-contact-with-the-ground raised bed. While there is no ground contact to act as a wick, there's also nothing to impede free drainage........certainly a much greater drainage opportunity than one would encounter with a typical container situation.

OTOH, the underlying pallet might alter that if the spacing of its wooden supports is close, effectively reducing the amount of area available for free, unimpeded drainage. If that's the case, I might go for some sort of hybrid soil option that combines the features of both raised bed soil and container soil. You are looking at over a cubic yard of soil to fill that raised bed and that could prove rather pricey regardless of the soil options.

Your raised bed is a container and should be treated as such. 4x10 is pretty big for a container. You won't be able to move it without a tractor unless you empty it. I would just take it apart and chalk it up as a learning experience. If you can just dig a normal bed, I would do so.

gardengal,

The spacing of the wood beams is far apart. But from the link you provided, it looks like I have to treat it like a container due to the fact that it will not be in contact with the ground (the giant wick), and therefore I have to be worried about adhesion and cohesion of the water, and the water's potential to "perch." I know that using this raised bed design I cannot use my backyard garden soil, which is full of clay, which is super fine particles that will hold water and refuse to drain. But I also know I cannot use sand, since the particles are still too small...it looks like I'll have to use mostly pine bark fines.

So this raises another question: Are pine bark fines and pine bark mulch the same thing? I have a suspicion that the cheap pine bark mulch at Lowes has been thoroughly soaked in harmful chemicals. It looks like Lowes and Home depot do not sell "pine bark fines," so that means I'll have to find out where I can go to get them...

I agree it's a container, but you can 'fix' drainage issues and change it to a bed by using something like weed barrier as the mesh at the bottom (anything that allows water to pass - you could even use heavy Visqueen with a hole poked in it in a strategic place). In order for it to ACT as a raised bed, you can build a sag into the liner on top of the pallet such that the soil at the bottom of the sagging portion is in contact with the earth. This requires cutting a hole at the bottom of the sag. THEN, it's a raised bed because there is a direct pathway for water in the soil to make its way out of the container cum bed and into the earth. It won't drain as fast as a raised bed but it will drain as completely, with the exception of any water that might get trapped in the valleys formed by wooden slats on the pallet.

Al

Local garden center told me pine bark mulch and pine bark fines are not the same thing...pine bark fines at the garden center cost $17.50 per half cu yard, and I need 1.5 cu yards for my 4'x10'x1' raised up-off-the-ground raised bed...so that's $52.50 for the bark.

Then I'll need 80 gallons of sphagnum peat moss ($80 roughly), 80 gallons perlite ($80 roughly), and I have no idea how much the dolomitic lime and CRF (dont' know what it is) will cost, so already I'm at a little over $200...

Is this worth it? Am I paying too much? Would it be smarter and more economical to take the bed off the pallet, put it on the ground, and use the mix that jonhughes(So.Oregon) uses?

45% Clayish soil
25% Compost
10% Pumice
20% Decomposed Granite

I don't even know if I can get pumice or decomposed granite around here, would have to wait till Monday to make some calls...

The question seems to be, how important is portability?

Al

Less important than cost.

Is your answer in what you just offered? ;-)

Al

So you think we should convert it to a normal raised bed that sits on the ground? I guess it depends on what hubby says...he's the one that built it, and he really likes portability. My priority though is cost.

I'm not getting in the middle of that particular discussion ;-), but if you need help with whatever you guys decide, we'll all still be here to help.

Al

Why do you think you need a raised bed? I would just plant in the ground. That's about the height of portability at that scale. If you want to move the bed next year you just carry your shovel to the new spot and start digging. Lol.

I like raised beds for many reasons. To help control moisture level. To control nutrients in soil, to control Ph. Also I was able to train my dog to stay out of raised beds, but in ground, he doesn't get the difference between lawn and garden. In ground is packed in, raised beds are fluffy, and no reason to ever step into them. So soil stays very loose. Yields will be a lot better. Weed control is easier on the back.

Well hubby said that the way he built this off-the-ground pallet raised bed cannot be undone without a lot of effort, so he is very strongly inclined to stick with the current design. We know a guy in landscaping and are going to get a quote from him on potting mix ingredients tomorrow...so it looks like this in fact is going to be a large container and therefore tapla's ingredients have to be used...(as far as I understand)...

And yes we do have a tractor to move it around with...

Nil, we do not yet want to plant in the ground because first we have to do a lot of work to get things ready for in-ground planting and we don't have the time to invest in all of that right now...

Well good luck with it. I myself would not put potting soil only. I have been using compost for 40 years in pots, and in raised beds (see my houzz photos for a peek at my stuff). If you stick with Tapla's ingredients, he says it's good for 2 years, so I would hate to change it out every 2 years. I myself would use garden soil with added compost. It never has to be changed out.

My garden soil is basically all clay though...it won't drain and the water will perch. You'd have to do a lot, and I mean a lot, to get that soil to drain. I'm not even sure what all you'd need to do to it...and it has a lot of fungus in it too. And I've never found a worm in it, ever. Just other bugs...based on some of the reading I've done here, if there's no worms in it, then something's wrong with it...it has plenty of other bugs but just not worms so far that I've seen...

My garden soil comes from a plot of land where the previous homeowners had a garden, probably over 20 yrs ago. The garden plot is now grown over with trees and the trees would need to be cleared out in order to even think about using it.

You said you use compost...is it 100% compost or something mixed in with the compost?

The 5:1:1 mix never has to be changed out either, in the same way we never need to change socks, but it's better if we do - same thing when the topic is a topsoil/compost mix, which I'd not even consider using in the first place ..... and would never suggest it never needs to be changed. And I almost never use the word 'never'. Compost and topsoil in a container is simply a very bad idea due to water retention in the extreme.

SCS - you CAN make heavier soils work if you can get a wicking system in place.

Al

Well after starting this thread I have figured out that gardening simply isn't simple and that I have a LOT to learn...so here goes...

(BTW I have 5 tomato plants with flowers, and one plant has a baby tomato! And they are still in 1 gallon containers! The poor things!!!)

tapla (mid-MI z5b-6a) said:

"I
agree it's a container, but you can 'fix' drainage issues and change it
to a bed by using something like weed barrier as the mesh at the bottom
(anything that allows water to pass - you could even use heavy Visqueen
with a hole poked in it in a strategic place). In order for it to ACT
as a raised bed, you can build a sag into the liner on top of the pallet
such that the soil at the bottom of the sagging portion is in contact
with the earth. This requires cutting a hole at the bottom of the sag.
THEN, it's a raised bed because there is a direct pathway for water in
the soil to make its way out of the container cum bed and into the
earth. It won't drain as fast as a raised bed but it will drain as
completely, with the exception of any water that might get trapped in
the valleys formed by wooden slats on the pallet.

Al"

-----------------

In this example you gave, I am not sure what you mean by a "sag." This is hard to visually imagine. I looked up the word in the dictionary and it means a depression. The visual picture in my mind is a pipe filled with dirt that runs from the bed into the ground (this would be like a wick I guess?). Reminds me of grounding electricity. Is this what you had in mind? And in this example that you gave with a sag, what soil would be used in the bed: container mix or something more like jon's formula?

You have the idea. If you can manage the soil column(s) in the plastic pipe or equal you can use a soil you wouldn't normally be able to use (effectively) in a container. You're just using hydrology to change a pot into a raised bed by adding the wicks.

Al

If it were me, I would use some garden soil, sand, plant your tomatoes. I've done it and never had a problem. Got lots of great tomatoes. Why go crazy over this. They will grow well, flower, fruit and you'll get your tomatoes. Then they die.

You start again next year. Vegetables are not trees. They have one season unless you are growing vegetables like Asparagus. Then I would use bags of garden soil (organic) and mix some sand into it. Put it in the beds and you are good to go!

Don't drive yourself and your husband crazy. Life is too short!

Its growing! Those veggies will grow and do very well. I grew lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, herbs, flowers, etc. in containers, for many years. I used homemade compost, some sand and sponge rock.

I'm an organic grower and never had a problem.

Jane