Hi i am doing a raised bed this year but need to know what to fill it with, some one said to me to put cardboard on the base and then fill it with compost and topsoil. Its for my allotment veggies, thank you in advance for any help..
I put permeable landscaping fabric on the bottom, lined the sides with heavy duty polythene and filled it with 50% topsoil from the garden centre and 50% well rotted farm yard manure again from the gc.
Every year I top dress it with another layer of well-rotted FYM in the spring and it grows lovely veg.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I have just built a raised bed and all I've done is loosened the clay soil at the bottom and added loads of spent mpc from last years pots and grow bags. Do I also need to add topsoil and manure? Money is an issue this year and so I have to go with the cheapest (or preferably free) option. Should I have lined the bed first? Its only 8" deep and I thought that the plants would need to get their roots down deeper than that. Hope I don't have to dig it all out and start from scratch.....
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Hi Figleaves
I put permeable landscaping fabric on the bottom, lined the sides with heavy duty polythene and filled it with 50% topsoil from the garden centre and 50% well rotted farm yard manure again from the gc.
Every year I top dress it with another layer of well-rotted FYM in the spring and it grows lovely veg.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
We used soil from digging a large pond and also added multipurpose compost and chicken pelleted manure. Everything in the beds grows, no casualties.
I have just built a raised bed and all I've done is loosened the clay soil at the bottom and added loads of spent mpc from last years pots and grow bags. Do I also need to add topsoil and manure? Money is an issue this year and so I have to go with the cheapest (or preferably free) option. Should I have lined the bed first? Its only 8" deep and I thought that the plants would need to get their roots down deeper than that. Hope I don't have to dig it all out and start from scratch.....