Permeable means it s ability to allow liquids to pass through. Chicken wire is fine if you have moles/voles but landscape fabric is only mildly permeable. Testing consistently shows it slows drainage substantially. It is not ever recommended for the bottom of a bed by experienced gardeners and it would have no effect on the moles and voles anyway. 75:25 compost:loam is high on the compost side and the quality depends on your definition of "loam". Means many different things. But as long as it isn't so-called "top soil" or sand a 50/50 mixture of it would probably work. More commonly you see the recommendation for 40:60. But you will have to add more compost at least once a year and better 2x a year as it continues to shrink as it decomposes. I get the impression you aren't interested in first trying to improve your native soil and incorporate it into the bed, correct? That is the best route to go. But if not then you need to understand that overtime it can affect whatever you fill your bed with unless you made some sort of solid bottom box which is not at all recommended. But you can still make it work with a framed raised bed on top of it with chicken wire or hardware cloth on the bottom IF you keep the bed well and frequently amended with quality compost. Over time the leachate and soil bacteria will improve the soil below the bed as well. Dave

Welcome alaskanamazon! Well, I rememeber seeing once someone from Alaska making use of some old floor freezer/fridges as raised beds. I remember them saying that because the raised beds heated up quicker than the ground that they could grow their veggies sooner than most. I'm sure you could find and old rusted out car, take the wheels off, cut the top off and fill it with dirt. An old kayak/boat would work as well. Some peopl ehave used canes to make trellis'. I think an old spring mattress (no fabric or stuffing--just springs and frame) would make a FANTASTIC one standing up on end and/or propped up against a building. I have used wooden ladders as well. Hope this all helps you! Loev, Jules

You're probably going to need some sort of fertilizer - primarily for the N. It's hard to say what a good Ca/Mg source would be w/o a soil test, but if you want to be sure Ca and Mg are available, you could use dolomitic lime or gypsum + Epsom salts or MgO. Any idea what the pH of the topsoil is? I just can't make a reasoned recommendation w/no knowledge of the pH w/o leaving more than I'm comfortable with to chance. When I made my beds I incorporated dolomite at 5 lbs/yd, but I had a larger organic fraction than you. Forced to GUESS, I'd probably incorporate 2-3 lbs of dolomite per yard. 2 lbs if you go with 75-80% mineral soil & more if you go with a larger organic fraction. Again, that's a guess based on the fact that the larger than usual organic fraction will provide some pH buffering. You can add/incorporate some bark if you want and it won't hurt anything - though it will add somewhat to the degree of shrinkage over time and probably add a little to the amount of N supplementing you'll need to provide for best growth. 2-3 years down the road you'll be glad you did. Al

I’m just guessing The word exotic was used to be an attention getter and it certainly was. I believe what the what the composer of that text was truly talking about was the addition of certain items which I have used. Some Bing kelp meal, bonemeal blood meal, green sand, (can’t remember any more, but there were about 4 more) some powdered minerals from rocks. All of this was added to Pete moss, Vermiculite my home brown compost no animal waste compost such as, newer or chicken manure. It was strictly grass clippings and leaves and whatever else I can throw in it it wouldn’t attract ants. It was very expensive to put together I was so excited. I emptied all my pots and refilled all of them with my wonderful new body style and put my new plants back in it. It’s been three months now they’re not growing or looking lush and green and wonderful; they are living. Finally I started putting miracle grow on them and now they’re beautiful but that would’ve happened with the quality soil I bought from Lowe’s. I also believe that would be referred to as an “exotic potting soil”. I also believe that, that’s what the person meant that used the expression “exotic potting soil“for the first time and all of these comments or something similar give or take a few additives. I got my exotic potting mix recipe from savvy gardeningI got my exotic potting mix recipe from savvygardening.comI got my exotic potting mix recipe from savvygardening.com on the Internet. The owner of this website lives in Canada. I live in coastal Louisiana, Baton Rouge. I tried and tried to get her to ask if she thought this recipe would work in the deep South. You never can get her, she doesn’t respond. I just figured since it was such an intricate recipe she would have taken into account a drainage issue that all states share, since I couldn’t get her. The The only worry that I had was that the drainage would be wrong because I had never worked with that much Pete Moss, but it did have almost equal vermiculite so I figured it would probably drain really well. I was right; it drained beautifully thank goodness. Louisiana is a third rainiest state in all of our United States. We are right behind Florida and Hawaii. I now have a very large city garbage cans filled with Pete Mas vermiculite vermiculite and my compost plus a very long list of additives so next time I make the recipe( b cause I got to get rid of this stuff) that I will cut back a bit on the amount of vermiculite.