Moving my raised bed

17 years ago

I plant roughly twelve plants every year in a raised bed and a couple extra for fun in pots (which have never done well). I have been doing this for 4 or 5 years now. I have to say my first year was by far the best and since then it has gone down hill. I think part of the problem may be that we did a big addition on our house which changed the lighting conditions and possibly the soil.

In any case I am going to give my bed a change of scenery this year and move it to another side of the yard which should get more sun and hopefully the peppers will like the new soil.

I was looking for recommendations on what to fill the bed with. Frankly I can't remember what I used the first time but I am sure it was just some commercial version of potting soil. Any recommendations would be welcome. The more economical the better.

Thanks

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Comments (4)

greenmulberry
17 years ago
I get finished compost from the city landfill, made from the bags of leaves people leave at the curb. It is ten dollars a ton (practically free), they fill a pick up bed for you. I borrow a friend's truck to get it. It is VERY well composted.

I have been using it for years and it is wonderful stuff. Have you checked if you have something like that around? That is what I use to fill raised beds.
naturalstuff
17 years ago
I get Top soil with cow manure in it delivered for $30 a yard. All you need is 1 yard for the raised bed and you're good to go. :) Till the soil, maybe the soil in there is depleted
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kj_57701
17 years ago
Our local nursery has big piles of different media like rock, compost, soil etc. I go there and pay about $15 for half a pickup load of soil and compost. I also buy some peat-moss bags and till that into the soil. I have not checked the chemical composition of my garden lately (I have a friend with a great test-kit. Just need to learn how to use it!). I just bought a bag of Bone-meal that I was going to till in as well.

It would maybe be nice to mix in perlite as well, but I don't know how to get hold of that up here. All they have is the expensive and very small bags. Definitely not financially sound.

I have also noticed that my plants in pots don't produce like the ones in the garden. I was thinking that I'll try to remedy that this year. I have so much more soil in my garden than I need, so I'll mix in extra peat moss into the top and use that to fill my pots. I think that the reason the potted plants don't do as well is simply that the top-soil compact more rendering the root-development much harder in pots. Maybe my watering is not ideal either.

Also, maybe the roots gets too hot in the middle of summer as well (they're in saucers, on top of concrete). I was thinking that maybe covering the concrete with a light layer of wood-chips around the pots would lessen the heat-absorption in the concrete and reduce the heat, thus helping growth.

I will definitely experiment with it this year. I've got 35 pots, so it would be nice to get a better handle on the production there.
jtrux
17 years ago
Use potting soil in your pots. Fafard and Pro Mix are two popular brands on this forum. Make sure your pots are large enough. General rule of thumb is 12-14" around. If heat is a problem, use lighter colored pots and put an insulator between them and the concrete, styrofoam like used to cover a house (behind the bricks) 'silver side down' or a piece of thick wood about the size of the bottom of the pot would help. Air is a good insulator (double paned glass is an example of air as an insulator). For air use the same wooden block as mentioned above but fill it full of holes, as many as possible.

Good luck
Jeremy