Question abt Raised beds compost soil
Naz
4 years ago
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Nevermore44 - 6a
4 years agoNaz
4 years agoRelated Discussions
soil for new raised beds, is all compost OK?
Comments (11)I guess I'm the lazy gardener. We have thick sod at our place. Last weekend I started two new beds using the lasagna method. This is how I've started all my beds. First, a thick layer of newspapers and then layers of grass clippings, kitchen scraps, dead plant material (i.e. old bean plants but not tomato plants that may be diseased), chopped leaves from the lawnmower bag, and a heavy sprinkle of wood ashes, and some aged manure. You're supposed to alternate greens and browns. This pile will sink a lot by spring. In the spring, a layer of aged and composted horse manure (mixed with bedding, kitchen scraps, etc) is added to all the beds. Right now, the two beds are about 24 inches tall. Sometimes the used soil/dead plants from pots gets added. I built my first bed in 2007, planted it in 2008. I've been very happy with this system since we have plenty of the ingredients. I get the composted horse manure from a Craigslist find. Perhaps I add enough soil, wood ashes and manure to get a good mix. (We heat with wood.) I started the first bed with old grass clippings from a neighbor and kept adding different material as it became available....See MoreWorms in lawn, soil, rocks, raised beds, compost pile
Comments (5)Well, IMO "luck" doesn't play a part in creating fertile soil. Many of us have spent years and a lot of work to have healthy soil with lots of worms. I've never seen an earthworm in my compost tho, even when it's not very hot. I started with heavy clay soil with only a very thin layer of topsoil and by amending it with cattle/horse manure, mushroom manure, sawdust, and even 'topsoil' I then grew cover crops which can greatly improve the soil. We didn't have large rocks in our garden area but I've handpicked a ton of smaller ones. The best way I've found to increase the population of earthworms is to bury raw kitchen trimmings between plants. The worms find them, enjoy their banquet, and reproduce. I think one might have worms in a raised bed unless you have used landscape cloth under it for weed control. However in a hot climate it may be too warm for worms depending on the depth of the raised bed. If I had a yard with all those rocks I'd hire someone with a skid steer and scarifier and rockhound attachments to remove those rocks. Otherwise they'll be a continuous problem....See MoreSoil question in a raised bed
Comments (4)You should not need vermiculite or perlite for raised beds. They help with drainage in container mixes, but raised beds really aren't pots. I think your mix will be fine. 50% is a lot of compost but about half its weight is water, and only part of the dry half is organic matter, and some of that will decompose away, leaving only a small fraction of the original compost as semi-permanent organic matter. So it really isn't too much. Just keep in mind that your beds will likely sink a lot the first year as that process takes place, so pile them up well or be prepared to add a little more soil next year if you want them at a certain level. Once you have good soil you can maintain it with much smaller additions of compost. Happy gardening! PS: For hot dry summers I use lots of mulch after planting the garden. Grass clippings (if not sprayed with herbicides), shredded leaves, straw, even half-done compost will work around your tomatoes and peppers and other large plants, and between rows of smaller plants. This post was edited by toxcrusadr on Thu, Aug 28, 14 at 13:28...See MoreNew soil/compost in raised beds keeps going dry
Comments (16)"how many minutes would you estimate I should water?" That's the thing right there. You really need a system in place where you can adjust timing and emitter size to give the results you need, and you determine that by trial and error, and that too varies by rainfall and plant size. I have a dead dry environment with no appreciable ground moisture and use two drip loops, the red one and the gray one, called so by the two cans of spray paint I happened to have on hand at the time. Each runs from a controlled sprinkler valve/vac breaker via 1/2" pvc tubing, and they run together everywhere. One loop is long duration and long interval, and one is short. There are cheap three dollar plastic ball valves at each bed to cut off the whole bed from the system. Each bed has a 12 inch threaded pipe coming up out of the ground and capped with a multi-barbed manifold head for 1/4" tubing. if a plant needs more water, I pop off the emitter and replace it with one with faster flow. The few things in a row like trellised peas and cukes get a long imbedded emitter drip line, but mostly it's just manifold heads with quarter inch lines snaking everywhere, so it's designed for specimen plants like toms, peppers, and squash, not bedding plants like carrots or garlic. If I had such bedding plants I'd just replace a tubing head on the short duration line with a shrub sprayer head. It's all dead simple and the whole thing probably cost $250 US. That's parts prices. 200 feet of tubing costs roughly $70 all by itself. It can be buried either in the beds or in the paths with spurs to the beds. Anywhere. I have no winter freezes so there was no reason to put a drain on the low spot. Two things. One is I have to do something like this to manage water because of the climate, but can still drag out a hose for touchups. Two, you still have to watch for clogged emitters. Three, it's easy but not mindless....See MoreNaz
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