Raised Bed Soil

[gergwebber]

I pretty much stopped tilling my veggie gardens soil over a decade ago and just apply an organic mulch spring and fall. Every time you till or pull a weed, you're bring weed seeds to the surface where they'll germinate. An organic mulch suppresses weed germination, moderates soil water and temperature fluctuations and eventually breaks down into beneficial substances for the plants...and I let the worms do the tilling.

True but that is a long term plan. I recently moved form a bed tended by me for a decade, to a community garden plot. I forgot that i had to till! New beds need soil breaking. Worms are better though. Plus after a few years, you deplete the soil seed bank.

Do you have Ed Smiths book?

 

[Dav4]

No, but I spent a lot of time on the gardenweb forums way back when right after I purchased my first house. Between the composting forum, veggie forum, and hosta forum, I learned ALOT! It turns out a lot of nerds like to garden...kinda like bonsai.

 

[kirk@localbonsai.com]

Just add some composted leaves and grass clipping, along with some sand

 

[RKatzin]

There's two types of mulching, One to amend the soil and the other to protect the roots of the trees. I was refering to protecting the trees as I thought the poster was.

 

[coh]

I add compost (home made) to my growing beds, along with sifted bonsai soil components (turface, perlite, lava, akadama - not the dust or finest particles, though). Also add used bonsai soil assuming the plant was healthy. Not sure if vermiculite is a good addition - I haven't used it in a while and seem to recall that it's really soft/soggy and holds a LOT of water.

Chris

 

[remist17]

Thanks all.
I ended up doing 4 beds all with similar soil but each with something added. Most of the the beds are just garden soil and top soil. One bed just has some native soil mixed in with the bagged stuff. Second bed has bagged soil with old bonsai soil mixed in. third bed has bagged soil and pine shavings (thanks Grimmy) and forth is bagged soil, pine shavings, old bonsai soil and small amount of native soil.
We will see what grows better.
I moved all the maples, cotoneaster, mulberry, sand cherry this past weekend. I am getting a shipment of seedlings sometime in April and will fill the last bed with them.
Thanks