Are any of you switching over to raised beds only this spring? I know I love my raised beds! Saved my back and seems lots easier to weed:)

I am! I'm hoping using raised beds makes my garden a bit more successful this year. I'm using corner pieces that I got for Christmas (www.leevalley.com/en/Garden/page.aspx?p=44674&cat=2,44664&ap=1) and 2x6 planks that I'll buy to build them.
The soil at my house is made up of boulders and clay so I think I should line the raised beds with landscape fabric before putting in the good soil so it won't wash away.
Any suggestions of things I should do to prepare the area the beds are going to be? I know I'll have to dig down one side to make the area flat.

Raised beds are a good way to control moisture and nutrients in the soil where you need it. I would use ground fabric to keep the rocks down as much as possible. I would also use a deep mulch method and not till the soil, use compost tea or well rotted manure to feed the plants. When done right you shouldn't have to pull many weeds and the soil will stay loose enough the weeds won't be able to take root hold and will pull easily. Good luck with the project. Oh, I also used 2x12 lumber in a couple of beds so my root veggies had plenty of growing room, Just a thought.

melissa_6053 wrote:
What a neat little invention:) I have clay where I live as well and it sucked so bad that I broke down and built all raised beds! I have never been happier with my garden!

Will the landscape fabric let in worms? You need them in a healthy garden.

I would personally dig down about 2" or 3" and add that much wood chips to the bottom on your raised beds. The chips will hold water, let in worms, help with soil run off, and keep grasses from pushing into your raised beds. Welcome to the site by the way!

Admin Matt

mike_6939 wrote:
Mike is right about the 2x12's:) That is what I got and they are the best!!

We use some raised beds, one table garden. (The salad bar) and still have one medium sized garden plot. Some crops I have found grow better in an open area. I do love our raised beds. We empty the entire compost bin into all our planting spaces every spring. We have about 50 chickens so we have a lot of compost! There are pros and cons to raised beds. They do require watering more often as they are better drained. I did not put anything into the bottom of the boxes. And we were lucky enough to have pretty darn good sandy loam that we placed the boxes and then dug out the dirt from the pathways. Then added a healthy load of compost and using one of those "toy" tillers(that work well in raised beds btw)
Another advantage is you can plant earlier as the soil warms faster in the beds. Also makes weeding a snap! We placed tons of recycled cardboards, paper shreds etc in the paths and "watered" them so they all layed flat and thick. And covered it with large bark. The paper materials underneath actually make a hard shell, making it hard for the weeds to grow and it will eventually decompose. I love walking the pathways everyday. Checking on progress, keeping weeds at bay and also an early detection of any pests!
Try it! You'll like it!!
Admin Kathy

We had our first vegetable garden in our new house last year and had mixed results. Some things did really well and others didn't grow at all. I know that we had some drainage issues that we have since taken care of but we also have a lot of red clay where we are. This year we are going to be switching to raised beds. We were planning on mixing 1/3 of dirt from our land, 1/3 compost (mostly bedding and manure from our farm) and 1/3 vermiculite. Will this work? I don't want to buy garden soil with chemicals and such from the store. Any suggestions?

jengalbraith818 wrote:
That's a pretty good ratio but normally clay soils are packed with nutrients but plants have a really hard time taking them up because they're condensed and stuck in the clay. Grab the Clay from your land that you were going to use in your garden beds and let it dry out as best you can before you mix. I would do just a tad less clay and rear up on the compost like crazy. If you can get your hands on them, I would really try and find some leaves that can be ground up as fine as you can get it, because that is the stuff that will break up the clay and allow your plants to take up the nutrients from the clay but the compost will add more nutrients:) Just make sure your compost is fully cooked if there is manures in it, otherwise you will have a bunch of burnt plants.

Good compost should smell like dirt when it's done cooking:)

Go to the top of the page here and type in "clay soils". I think there is an article I wrote some years back with videos on how I was breaking up my clay.

Thank you for the advice. I will definitely be checking on my compost. I had heard the vermiculite would help to break up the clay. Is that not so?

jengalbraith818 wrote:
Yes it is definitely true that is why thought that ratio was good:) The compost will break down fairly quickly but that vermiculite will stay for a long time so it's good. Compost on the other hand will gather so many earthworms and they are great at breaking up clay soil and really mixing compost into the clay soil! The best thing to break up clay soil forever is get worms in your garden and to do that you have to feed them. Yummy compost!!! Ha ha ha