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Some thoughts for Chrissie re new bed-building

At 09:15 AM 1/19/98 EST, Chrissie wrote:
>In his book Mel has a recipe for mixing the perfect soil, think its in Chapter
>5.  I was wondering if I need to add top soil to the mix, or can I use this
>recipe to fill my raised beds?  My hubby is making my a 4 x 10 foot bed -
>needs a rock wall so we made it big enough for 2 squares with a walkway in the
>middle.  IT will be on a slight slope and the plan is to make the wall on 3
>sides so the top of the bed is flat (built into the slope).  We plan to remove
>the sod before we fill the bed with soil.  Should we dig up the soil any
>before we add new soil?  Should we add top soil or just mix up enough of Mel's
>Perfect soil Mix to fill the bed?  I think it will only be about a foot high.

We have a sloping suburban lot and used a pro to build our rasied beds with
PT lumber last January.  They came out terrific.  Since your situation are
ours are somewhat similar, I thought I'd just send a couple hints.

1.  The build-into-the-slope plan is fine.  Just be sure you cut out the
existing dirt so there is an absolutely flat table of hardpacked soil to
start with.

2.  Re your question about digging up the soil any more before adding new
soil, my guy didn't do that.  But our contract also called for him to fill
the built beds with 'thrice-sifted topsoil,' which he purchased from another
source.  In other words, we didn't mix the existing dirt with the new stuff,
just dropped the new on top of the hardpan.

3.  Re height of the new bed, if you can manage a taller bed, you will be
VERY happy with it over the long haul.  We switched to raised-bed gardening
because our middle-aged backs were having a lot of trouble with the
necessary bending, digging, etc.  We have much less back trouble now than
before!  I would not have considered this an issue anytime before turning
40, but now it's a deal-killer. 

4.  Re width of the bed, ours are 4 feet across, measured from inside of the
wood to inside of the wood.  Don't make yours that wide!  We find it hard to
reach to the middle of the bed (esp. me--shortest limbs in the western
world) to set out transplants, prune, harvest, or apply soil amendments.
It's important not to walk on the soil, so keeping the bed narrower than 4
feet is a very good idea.

5.  Square-foot gardening does not require each square to be 12 inches on a
side!  Don't get hung up on the math:  it's the philosophy of no-bare-dirt
gardening that's in play here.  So a bed 3 feet wide with 18-inch "squares"
will work fine for you.

6.  About that "walkway in the middle," be absolutely sure it's
wheelbarrow-wide.  We almost made a bad mistake on that issue.  You'll
definitely want to be able to wheel some kind of cart through the area
during planting, harvesting, etc.

7.  On using a rock wall:  a couple weeks ago on "This Old House," the pro
landscape architect showed off some gorgeous rockwork his crew was building.
It wasn't raised beds for a garden but rather a no-mortar stone wall to
manage a change in grade and then some spread-apart biggish stones to hold
down a gently sloped edge descending from trees to the driveway.  Really
great looking but clearly not the work of an amateur.  There's nothing more
beautiful than a rock wall using local stone.  But the soil in a raised bed
will exert a lot of pressure on the wall that's not built into your slope.
If you're gonna try this without mortar, I'd suggest getting expert help
going in.  The trick shown on the TV show was to make the bottom course of
rocks much wider than the higher courses.

--Janet   

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