My wife and I just built a 4' x 10' (1 foot high) raised bed and need some tips for filling it. We are going to be using a black earth type product as the base for the bed. We then want to add five 30 lb bags of composted cow manure to the mix. After that I was thinking I would sprinkle some timed-release granulated all purpose fertilizer such as Miracle-Gro Organic Multi-Purpose Organic Plant Food into the mix. How does this sound? Do we need more manure? Less? Any thoughts or input would be greatly appreciated! Thanks! You never told us how much of what mix you will be adding to. Is the manure composted or dehydrated? John Here is a link that might be useful: John's Journal

You didn't state your zone location. In my area of western WA with dry summers & wet mild winters drainage is utmost because things rot in our cold wet soils if I don't amend soil for fall/winter crops. We need to add lime yearly due to the heavy rain leaching the soil. You could consult the county extension gardening resources or consult a local independent nursery for more information about the soils in your area. Mixing it up now sounds like a good idea. Mulch plants after planting. Add compost after harvest. Keep putting organic matter back in on top of the soil & the worms will work it in the rest of the way. You won't have to dig through & mix it all up again. The beauty of raised beds is that you only dig once. If you're planting transplants you could just part the layers & plant them. Seeds will need fine soil so they can break through. Chunks make it more difficult for them. I agree about allowing space for mulch to hold the moisture & provide some frost protection if your climate warrants.

I know nothing about raised beds. Never cared for the concept so can't help. The concept of micro climates has been interesting. For years I'd heard about micro climates. They never made any sense in most climates I've lived in...San Jose CA, Pensacola FL, Rochester NY, Germany and even in TX and AK. Yes, a few obvious differences like south facing for earlier starts in cold climates, but nothing worth having a special term. Here in Phoenix that changed. Moving a plant even a few inches in a garden made a surprising difference. I've found management of sun to be really important for plants that can't take 100% in order to extend the growing season for vegetables, many flowers, etc. I see it the same as frost management. Move a plant under a house eve or tree and no frost damage. Unfortunately I've found it so subtle that it really isn't possible to give any precise advice. What I've done is plant in pots around the yard and see how different plants react. When I find the best spot I design around that. Takes a few years, but that's what I did. And I have to do that every time I've moved in Phoenix (3 so far). I do have hunches now so it's easier. One issue I do suspect is soil in pots becoming too hot. I was transplanting a potted plant once, mid day in summer, and the soil in the pot was so hot I could barely touch it. How any plant survives those conditions is amazing. Now I'm shading pots. Another thing I suspect is many places say stuff like vegetable X requires N hours of sun per day. More sunlight is always better, AK in summer is crazy good. In Phoenix in late spring, summer, early fall, sunlight = heat = death/dormant, so we have to deal with that. But we have one advantage, lots of sunny days. So I think I can get away with slightly less hours of sun per day and still get some reasonable result. For me, I'm more of a try everything to learn my yard. I threw away my Sunset Western gardening book, stopped watching gardening TV shows, reduce reading gardening info online after moving to Phoenix. It wasn't relevant, it was misleading. Even talking to neighbor gardeners often steered me wrong. People can have wildly different concepts of what "you can grow X here". For example tomatoes. I've heard many people say they grow tomatoes here and when I see the plants I see an almost dead plant and no fruit. When they say "tomatoes grow here" they were talking about the plant, not the fruit. It gets confusing. I have seen pictures of healthy tomato plants posted, pictures of fruit and lots of people say growing tomatoes is no problem...I don't doubt them. They lucked into a great micro climate spot I assume and they then assume anyone can grow the same lovely crop in any location. I haven't found that to be true. And for sure you can't asked any questions of most people because they're so insecure on the subject they instantly get super defensive. Only once in a great while will you run into a "gardener" that can carry on a civil in depth discussion. My view on vegetables is shifting to give up on summer and focus on winter. It's easier I think to raise the temp here in winter with a greenhouse/cold frame than deal with summer's sun/heat/low humidity. Look at our temps, sun, humidity right now...looks a lot like most of the country's summer values. Even a crappy cold frame/greenhouse can push today's temps even into prime tomato growing range. That could extend the tomato growing season from say Oct to June, 8 months. Seem like a better plan for me than the 2-3 month season we have in the spring and again in the fall at least for some vegetables. That's only what I've done. Not saying it's how anyone else should or that it's right. I'm still learning.

I have a lot of eucalyptus trees growing along the fence of the units next door. I have a passion-fruit growing in a pot and it was matted over with the white roots; the pot was on a concrete slab so the roots could not have travelled from the tree. A friend of mine said the Chinese pay money to buy these roots as it is good for the soil but I believe they are choking the young trees including my passion fruit although it is not dead. I made a raised garden and placed a weed protector half a meter high on the sides yet the raised garden is full of it and it has attached itself to the weedmat.