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Filling my first raised veg patch
stannie203
Posts: 6
in Fruit & veg
Hi,
I've built a raised vegetable bed out of railway sleepers (1m x 2m x 0.4m =700 litres) for us to have our first foray into growing fruit and veg.
My question is - what do I initially fill it with?! I don't have any soil that I can place in the bed, so I'll need to buy bags/bulk delivery.
What should I looking at filling it with for a starter/novice? 100% multi-purpose compost? Or 50% top soil and 50% multi-purpose compost? Or 100% top soil and just a bag or two of compost mixed in? Or any other mixture?
Looking forward to learning as I go and getting more into this, but just need to get it filled and get planting.
Picture of the bed is attached! (Scalped the grass off so it doesn't grow through...!
Thanks
Rob
0
Posts
That looks great
I've found that MPC breaks down to dust very quickly. I've filled raised veg beds with a mix of two thirds sieved topsoil and one third welll-rotted farmyard manure (bought in bags from the GC). It's always worked well.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Cool - so no MPC at all? Seems to be so many different answers out there!
I'd imagine a bed FULL of MPC will be too hot and cause problems when growing fruit and veg? As I understand it, i need the MPC/manure to 'improve' the soil?
In my experience MPC breaks down to dust very quickly - the growing medium in a raised veg bed will be there long term - plants have been growing in soil for aeons - some well-rotted manure to add organic matter, attract worms and improve the structure so that it holds air as well as water is what plants need.
Others may say different but I've been gardening and growing veg for a very long time and that's what I've found.
Last edited: 21 March 2017 13:28:04
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I am currently filling some new raised beds of a similar depth. I can only tell you what I've done, not how successful it is (but I'm hopeful!).
As they're so deep, I used a lasagne approach for the bottom quarter, just to save some money on bought in materials - so there was some old topsoil from elsewhere in the garden, some home made compost, some kitchen waste, some grass cuttings and some cardboard - all in layers. Kind of a buried compost heap - I figure most of it would have broken down by the time any roots get to it.
Then I filled to about 3/4 of the way up with bought fruit & veg topsoil, mixed with a bit (about a sixth, I guess) of home made, guinea-pig-poo-rich compost. And the final quarter is the fruit & veg topsoil mixed with bought farmyard manure (probably no more than a quarter manure).
It looks pretty good. If anyone has any comments on what I've done / wants to warn stannie off copying it, do feel free, I won't be offended.
That sounds really good LG - guinea pig poo is a fabulous addition to homemade compost and high in nitrogen so good for leafy veg.
When I worked, a colleague who kept show cavies used to bring me a bag of 'manure' every week - it's the one thing I miss now that I'm retired
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Good suggestions - i have a compost bin but i didn't put a lid on it until recently, so all of last year's grass clippings, while rotted down a bit, just look a bit wet and sad rather than proper compost - presume I can still throw all this in?!
We've only really got access to daily fruit/veg waste, which I guess needs composting down first?
Sounds like manure of some description will be a worthwhile purchase to mix in with soil and a bit of compost.
My neighbour also suggested used coffee grounds and some discarded product from the local brewery (the name escapes me). I presume these two items are just nice to haves and can be added/mixed into the bed at any time? Just want to get a full bed to start me off...
Thanks Dove. It's not me that has the guinea pigs, it's my brother, but he's moving so has been bringing me the contents of his compost bins. My goodness it seems to break down very quickly with the addition of GP poo! Not sure how much more I'll get - might ask if I can have a sack of cage clearings every now and then to add to my heap.
Glad you think it sounds okay.
Good luck with your veg bed, stannie.
I put coffee grounds in the compost heap, stannie. But in the lower reaches of the raised bed (lasagne bit) I did just throw kitchen waste (veg peelings, coffee grounds etc) straight in with all the other stuff.
So with these lasagne layers, there's no mixing in, you literally left it layered and let the worms etc mix things together for you? Could you mix it all up, or is layering best?
I don't know whether one way would be better than another, to be honest. My 'layers' were not a whole layer of anything, it was more a matter of avoiding having too big a lump of any one thing, same as you do with a compost heap. So I'd scatter some grass clippings thinly over the whole area, then some compost over the whole area, then some kitchen waste, etc etc. Because there wasn't a solid layer of anything, by definition it mixed up without me actively doing anything. The first layer of cardboard was fairly solid because I wanted to smother the grass underneath, but even that was a bit mixed because I watered it and it rained and then the foxes got in there overnight and had a good play - by the next day it was very scratched and broken and soggy.
If you Google lasagne raised beds you'll see all kinds of reasoning and instructions. I just did it because I could and it was a way to begin to fill what is a very deep be, it's not my overall gardening method.