Hello to all,

I'm planning a raised bed garden, and due to the unknown quality of the yard soil, I have purchased Miracle Grow Natural/Organic soil from Home Depot. Anyone have any comments about this soil?

I've tentatively planned to build raised beds that will be separated from my lawn's soil by a shallow bed of rock/gravel and I will prevent the erosion of my raised beds' soil with a combination of chicken wire and aluminium screening. The material for the bed walls will be untreated pine 2x4s. The rock bed will prevent sagging in the wire. The dimensions of the beds I have planned will be:

48" wide (44" inner width)

18-20" soil depth

8' length

Also, I'm planning to have strawberries, tomatoes, a variety of peppers (spicy and mild), some blue lake bush green beans, cilantro, and genovese basil. Would each of these require different width and depth for the beds. Does anyone have any suggestions for an optimal width/depth that would suit them all, and or specifications for any or each veggie. I've grown the Genovese basil before but they were in square beds 12" apart, if memory serves, and I had a really good run with them.

Here is my specific list plants, any spacing suggestions greatly appreciated:

All seeds are from Burpee.

1.garden bean (bush blue lake #274)

2.peppers (Carnival mix (Big Red, Chardonnay, Purple Beauty, Orange Sun, Diamond)

3.cilantro (Coriandrum sativum)

4 pepper (hot mix, anaheim TMR 23, Ancho, Long Slim Red Cayenne, Jalapeno M, Hungarian Wax)

5.Genovese Basil (Ocimum basilicum)

In addition, I have six starter strawberry plants from Home Depot, Bonnie is the supplier, not sure of the variety name, anyone know and have any other tips for these?

Thanks, I'll be checking back and happy growing to all!

J