No tiller necessary. Here, go to the site I'm going to give you and read up on everything you need to know about square foot gardening. Mel will even give you the recipe for making the soil mix to use. Equal parts of peat moss, vermiculite, and compost.

What I did was a bit different because I already had good garden soil that I didn't want to waste. I put my raised beds right on the garden plot and used the soil mix to heavily amend the already existing garden soil. Heavily! Yes, there were some weeds that came up later, but not many and I just pulled them as I saw them. That was two years ago and there are very few weeds in my garden now. I do not put any kind of landscape cloth or anything on the bottom, just the garden itself.

Go check out the site. There is also a square foot gardening thread on this forum.

http://www.squarefootgardening.com/

Good gardening!

You could check out the square foot garden site. There is no roto tilling done there. The simplest suggestion would be to build your frames, lay newspaper or cardboard on the bottom, right on top of your soil, and then fill the beds with what ever materials you choose, ie. compost, top soil, etc. It would cost a small fortune to buy and mix up the items used exactly for "square foot gardens" and its really not necessary to do it by the book. After the beds are made up, I would have a soil test done to determine if you need anything more. Add home made compost as often as you can, and within a few years all should be fine. I hope that helps you some.
Alberta

Thanks guys.

I'm not real interested in the square foot garden technique - I will have plenty of room. However I will read up on how they take care of the soil.

Ideally I'd like to get it where I don't have to roto till at all - or at most once every few years and then I can just rent one for the day.

Thanks again.

Jeff

Read my lips, Jeff, no tilling. EVER. Even if you don't use the SFG technique for planting, if you use the general idea for building boxes and amending your existing soil, you will never have to till. Why would you want to get the tiller in the box to begin with?

I'm hoping you make your own compost because you need a good deal of it for soil amending.

Agree, you don't have to do Sq Ft Gardening by the book, the principles stay the same. Use a good quality growing media and never walk on it. This alone prevents the need for ever having to use a roto-tiller.

The reason people rototill gardens is that soil particles are small, rain compacts them and walking in the garden does as well.

With a raised bed, don't fill it with pure yard soil, fill it with ingredients that have a larger particle size and never walk on it. Compaction will then never occur to the point a tiller is needed.

Our community garden is in raised beds that are 4' x 18' and were filled with a compost/garden soil mixture. They were tilled when first made to mix the ingredients well. We haven't tilled since and only amended with compost and organic fertilizers using trench method. All other fertilization is liquid form or hand scattered. The beds are mulched.

After 3 years, I feel some of the beds probably need more extensive amending and I'll probably till it in because it'll require less work.

These beds were built on clay that was compacted by heavy equipment. This had been the original site for the city's recycle trial. It was like concrete but after 3 years of these beds with mulch walkways, you can actually pound a stake into the ground.......it took a jackhammer before. I've even seen worms in the beds.

So no, you won't need to till unless you want to.

Speaking of roto tillers, wait till you see this news story:

http://www.kitv.com/video/16821564/index.html?treets=hon&tml=hon_12pm&ts=T&tmi=hon_12pm_1_05000307082008

confused what does that news clip have to do with roto tillers?

I have raised beds and have spent what I consider a small fortune on cinder blocks, soil and compost. We've spent close to 800.00 but much of that was the soil to backfill a retaining wall for flowers. However, I estimate it will be at least another 800.00 to finish the vegetable garden. Probably more depending on how big we end up... My husband and I often wish we had "regular" dirt that we could just ammend with a tiller. The upside is that every spring I can literally dig a planting hole with my trowel. I do till in compost, with a pitch fork, which takes very little effort. When I get older I think I'll buy one of those teeny tiny tillers for that job.

If I had the choice, though, I would prefer to have soil that took some work, over all the labor involved with establishing raised beds. If you can hire someone to do it for you then it would be easier... just my 2 c.

Why are you raising your beds? Is it to get a longer growing season because of the warmth in the bed? Or to amend the soil because your soil isn't so great? Or because it promotes greater mobility for you because of the heighth? Another question I have is, what do you mean by raised beds? Are you going to do regular row gardening and just putting mounds of soil up?

cdposey26, the guy was moving a roto tiller when he got the pin stuck in his head. The pin is from the roto tiller.

Posted by carolynp z7

Why are you raising your beds? Is it to get a longer growing season because of the warmth in the bed? Or to amend the soil because your soil isn't so great? Or because it promotes greater mobility for you because of the heighth? Another question I have is, what do you mean by raised beds? Are you going to do regular row gardening and just putting mounds of soil up?

*********************************************************

D) All of the above?

My soil is very hard packed clay with loads of rocks. I had some top soil with compost brought in to at least have a small (15X15) garden this year, but the soil still compacts easily due to the fact that I have to walk in it to get to the veges.

I'd like to do raised beds to create a much better growing environment, and get away from the row technique to a 4'X12' or so bed technique.

I clearly understand the upfront $$ issue - and I'm not concerned about it. I would rather put in the effort up front (I can do all of the carpentry / filling myself), and have a fertile garden that will last for years with just adding some fertilizer and compost every year, than having to till and work with my awful soil!

Also being in zone 4/5 I believe this will hopefully give me a couple weeks jumpstart on the garden. I put my garden in at the end of may, and I have yet to be able to harvest anything besides a few snap peas (I planted them way to late as it's my first garden and didn't know better), radishes and arugula.

It will be august by the time i have any tomatoes / cukes / zuchini / summer squash... next year I want it much sooner if possible :)

Hope that answers your questions, and thank you all for your helpful responses!

I think I will go with the raised beds (I think i'll make 4 or 5 4' X 12' and have topsoils and compost brought in), and will most likely start building them slowly towards the end of summer so it's all ready to go next spring.

Thanks again, and any more advice is still appreciated!

Oh maybe I saw the wrong video I saw a weather report and a volcano. Thanks for clarifying

Man! Do I ever hear you about the short grow season this year!! This is my first year with raised beds, but I'm hoping to talk my hubby into some kind of cold frame soon.
Since it sounds like our goals are similar, I will say that I put my frames on a study piece of cardboard. It keeps the beds a bit warmer and it helped me keep the beds weed free. Let me link you pic at the bottom. My beds are kind of weenie beds, but, hey, I'm new at this.

I don't want you to get angry and think I'm ignoring you, but those reasons you listed are all the reasons behind square foot gardening. I know you said you don't want to use sfg (which is also a version of french intensive), but you could easily take the things you like about it and ignore the stuff you dislike (which is? I'm confused about that part.)

As far as the cost is concerned, it doesn't need to be that big of a deal. I made my raised beds myself out of lumber a friend was tossing out, and I'm a little old lady. If I can do it, I'm not sure who couldn't do it,. I've made alot of my own compost, but I've met folks who got it from farms for free, especially since you can age it for a few months in your own cozy beds. I'm really glad I used the vermiculite, but to each his own. I probably wouldn't use peat moss again because it's getting pricey, but if you can afford it, you can get this substitute they make out of coconut fairly inexpensively that I hear is really cool to use.

Good luck to you! I hope it all works out. Link us some pics as you go through this.

Grace,
Carolyn P.

Thanks Carolyn.

Maybe someday I'll post up pics of my transition from row gardening to raised bed gardening, it might be fun :)

Anyway, I am basically going to do what you said and take what I want from the SFG method, and change what I don't want.

For example, instead of mel's mix, I'm going to go with a 2/3 top soil, 1/3 aged cow manure mix... and then amend it with my own grown compost as I go along.

In addition, I'm not going to use the plant closely method for some things... I like to give my tomatoes room to breathe! In addition, I really don't want the hassle of tieing up zucchini and squash - I love the way they spread out on their own, and greatly enjoy watch them move on their own (i.e. tilt when it rains, spread out when the sun comes out etc).

However I do think I'll look into the method when it comes to my greens, peas, beans, etc etc.

We'll see how it goes, going to start making trips to the lumber store this weekend, and slowly build beds over the next 5 months or so. I'm hoping to build 6 of them at least, maybe 4' X 12' each. I also will be putting chicken wire (I'm convinced I have more woodchucks on my property then the rest of the NE combined) and cardboard down first, then adding the manure and top soil. (This is all assuming the wife doesn't divorce me first for spending too much time with "my girlfriend" - i.e. the garden).

Anyway, thanks all for the responses :)

The only thing that you might want to consider is the width of your raised beds. Being short, I find that a 3 foot width is perfect for me. A 4'x12' would be too tempting to step into the garden, especially if that one ready-to-pick cuke was only an inch away from my fingertips! LOL

I have found that tilling can also kill many of the good organisms in the soil, such as earthworms, so I just mulch from the top with compost and turn over with a shovel or a fork when I have to. Just my opinion . . .

If your starting your beds now for next year you could also sheet compost. They call it all different things but you pretty much layer organic material over layers of cardboard and/or newspapers. I have been doing it for 2 years now and it has done wonders for my clay soil. Works great in raised beds.

Check out the soil and compost forum. They have all sorts of discussions going on about it.

Good Luck

Carey

Thanks for everyones great opinions.

I can't wait to start building my beds for next year!

I've already priced out all the materials, and to build 6 4X8X12" beds, including importing 7 yards of rich compost, will cost me less than the cost of a rototiller - and no roto tilling!

I can't wait :)

Sounds like you've got a plan. By this time next year we'll be hearing from you about all your successes, I just know it. Don't forget to let us know.

Just wanted to add my 2 cents...my dear husband went and bought me a 5 yard load of topsoil as a surprise. He went and filled one of the smaller raised beds he made for me. I found out that the topsoil compacted like cement and that bed needs to be heavily ammended. It either stays really, really wet or totally dries out and turnes to rock in a matter of 2 days after being soggy. The other bed he had half filled with the topsoil and I filled the other half with peat and vermiculite. That bed is doing really well. I found out the hard way that TOPSOIL is not so good in the raised beds. If I had to do it all over again I would stick with straight compost before I would ever pay a penny for topsoil. The one bed doing poorly will have at least half the topsoil dug out and compost and some vermiculite added. On the bright side, the other half of the topsoil will be the start of a new raised bed.

I don't think I will add the peat to the ammemded beds and would rather invest in the vermiculite. It was difficult to find at first but I called around and found a local greenhouse that sold me a 4 cu ft bag for $19.

Also we have a really cool John Deer weed whip with a smaller tiller attachment. I do like to use it to fluff up my raised beds and will use it to add in compost and chopped leaves in the fall.

Kim

Just wanted to say thanks again for all the responses.

As far as the soil, i'm leaning towards an almost 100% compost, as I found someone who will deliver it very cheap, however I need to go visit them and actually inspect it myself.

As an update in my traditional garden, I finally got some zuch's and sqauash this week and the cherry tomatoe's are turning red :)

I'm so addicted to this, and can't wait til start the "real" garden in the fall for next year (except i think i'll start garlic too this fall for harvest next year).