How to Fill a Raised Bed and Save 60%+ on Soil Costs
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 ก.ย. 2024
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Get the raised beds I use in my garden: shop.epicgarde... Raised garden beds are my preferred way to grow in my urban garden, but filling them can cost a pretty penny. Now, there are MANY ways to fill a garden bed on the cheap, and this is just ONE of them. It makes use of existing organic matter on your property (sticks, logs, brush, grass clippings, unfinished compost, etc.) to fill the bottom half of your bed.
Then, fill the remainder with a high-quality mix that you can either buy or make yourself. This method is particularly useful when growing in TALL (18"+) beds, as you don't need the perfect soil mix all of the way down. Over time, the fill material will break down and become food for bacteria, fungi, and other soil life and turn into high-quality soil for your garden over the years.
SPONSOR: ESPOMA ORGANIC
Espoma Organic has been organic from the start and makes absolutely epic raised bed soil mixes, potting mixes, and organic fertilizers. Their Raised Bed mix is my favorite bagged mix to fill a bed up. To find out where to buy, click here: www.espoma.com...
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Great use of common sense. You saved me a lot of effort. I am 80 and getting into farming now.
If you want to do hügelkultur, you SHOULD put in some coarser matter like logs and twigs at the bottom since they will take a long time to compost, providing natural heat for your raised bed. Next level is plant and grass clipping, then a layer of partially composted material and manure and then garden soil mixed with fully composted matter. While the layers compost, the density will increase and you fill up your raised bed with compost/soil every year. That way a raised bed will last around six to seven years till you have to start it anew. Of course you can leave it but then you lose the advantage of earlier and more abundant growth.
ETA: Please don't use any soil that contains peat. While it's fantastic for your garden, it comes from bogs which are decimated for peat production, resulting in the loss of a unique natural habitat. It is not considered re-newable.
couldn't we simply load peat bogs up with organic material for it to start breaking down all over again???
Use Coconut Coir in the place of Peat. Very sustainable.
@@BlueJadeU Hi, I live in Texas; so cotton Hulls and rice husks are a good replacement for peat. In addition, we have a lg. Compost pile.
@@jerryscanas Not really, because you drain them to harvest the peat. It was fine in the past, when it was only taken for local gardens and home fuel, but industrial-scale extraction is removing it faster than it's replenishing. It's a fossil fuel like coal.
That's what I expected him to do when he mentioned Mark's method, Mark uses logs at the bottom. I much prefer brown matter to grass clippings but that's mostly cause in my area there's a bore grass everywhere and it and some invasive weeds will grow up many inches if it gets the chance to, collect heaps of leaves in autumn/fall and use them.
Stumbled across your channel this morning and wanted to say thank you! We lost out house in the city to a fire, and decided to move to the country. We have never gardened before, so my daughter and I are brand new to this. Weve just put up about 12 raised beds and started some tomatoe seedlings. They just started poking their little heads up and- i started to panic lol. Now what? How do I move them? When and how often do I water? So many questions and no one to ask. So, thanks to google, I found you and a few other amazing gardeners who are sharing their knowledge. We appreciate you so very much. ❤
I ended up spending $80 on soil ingredients (peat moss, leaf humus compost, vermiculite, and perlite) today to fill a 12' x 5' bed, which I anticipate will be about 12" high. I appreciate this video very much because to purchase any more of those ingredients would almost defeat the purpose of saving money by growing my own food. Lots of us growers need to do it on a budget, so I appreciate the thought that went into this video.
Throw your fireplace/bonfire ashes into your mix, shredded newspaper, coffee grounds (ask your local coffee shop), fur from the pet groomer, spent mushroom compost, etc. Lots of materials available for free or nearly free.
Thank you so much!! My husband is building a raised bed for me for Mother’s Day tomorrow and I’m super excited to start gardening! We were freaking out about the cost of soil this morning though and feeling pretty discouraged. So glad I just found this! ☺️👍🏼
How did your veggie patch go?
I've been doing this for years. Totally a money saver. Basically use bottom half of your bed as a compost pile and cover with raised bed mix to plant in to. Works like a charm. Great video!
True that and the Australian homie who doin his thing holding in down down under with the self sufficientness....that guy legit too
He's a total cornball which I love. Wish he was doing veganic permaculture á la Will Bonsall though.
Self-sufficiency
@@HandlesAreForPussies Do you offer translations of comments in other languages, too?
Shawn Connell could you repeat that in English please? Thank you
Since people are still commenting and I'm getting notifications for this- I, as a native English speaker trained in second language acquisition and linguistics, want to make it clear that Shawn Connell is speaking English and that to say he isn't speaking English is quite rude.
You and Self Sufficient Me are my favorite people to watch on this topic. Keep it up you two
Awesome! Thank you!
I've been doing that for months, kitchen scraps, yard clippings, filling two huge raised beds. Did some big limb trimming and mulched the branches, that went in too. Once it was about 1/3 full or so, I went out and got a few Huge bags of organic raised bed soil, and now I got veggies on one side of my patio and some decorative plants on the other side.
Thanks Kevin! Love how you just accentuated and expanded on something I already do -- and I'll definitely use some of your tips. Some additional things I use include "old used" potting mix (window boxes and containers that are ready for fresh soil after some years of use), lower quality ground soil that I partly replace when planting roses, shrubs, and perennials, leaves leaves leaves saved from last fall, and the boxes and boxes of organic matter from my husband's orchid growing hobby (okay, "obsession" -- tons of leaves, roots, flowers, and used growing medium). Thanks again -- love your channel -- just discovered it this winter. So ready to use your tips in my small Chicago vegetable garden!
Yes, mix that soil with plant clippings and lots of leaves and let the bugs and worms get to work.
LOVE MARK. I have 2, now 3 gardening channels I subscribe to, Mark was my first. What a wealth of information you all provide! Thank you!
This last October we had a massive ice storm. The power company, as they cut down downed limbs and trees, they just piled them up and left them for homeowners to clean up. I used it to start six 4×12 foot raised beds. I have also gotten a kiddie pool and some fabric pots to start a small 'necessaries' garden until I can fill my beds with organic materials.
Thank you for all of the info, am a new subscriber, and will be bingeing your channel tonight! Much love from Oklahoma!!!
Thanks so much for this video and all the others. I run a native nursery here in SD and just started a veggie garden in my yard and I'm SO BAD at it! You've already saved me from making some major mistakes but I know I'll still make a lot along the way.
I garden in 9 galvanized horse troughs since they are plentiful here in Montana and I fill them with local renewable peat moss from a small pond bed along with branches, leaves, aging apples from our orchard, grass clippings, and cardboard/newspaper. We have a dairy nearby that has a methane digester putting out wonderful compost which we buy in pickup truck loads. I add worms when I find them in my garden. I just put together my first water-wicking trough after learning from Gardening with Leon. Now if it would just warm up. I don't know what I would do without all you generous TH-cam teachers.
Hi I'm new to this..
Don't I need to drill holes in the bottom for drainage?
@@ricksussman1411 If only using it as a raised bed: I remove the plug found on the side. It’s about an inch hole which seems to allow for plenty of drainage in our area. If you live where it rains a lot, maybe you would. But once you do, the trough has no other value than as a raised bed or wood box.
If creating a wicking tub, no.
PS: I have moved away from wicking tubs in our area. We are too dry a climate.
Im making my garden beds at least 1 metre tall as im also 6'4" and also keeps my Jack Russel and Mini Foxy off my garden i live in the tropics of Northern Australia great channel cheers.
Wesley Raistrick I’m American. Australia is such a beautiful place, I’d love to go there someday.
Sheila Johnson yes it is but I think it will now be a long while before Americans are allowed into Australia unfortunately with their Coronavirus well managed
@@sheilajohnson6478 Yes it is a nice place i live in the North of Australia a place called Cairns in the tropics.
Nice vid - thank you 👍🏽
I generally fill big pot and raised areas with any old smashed crockery, plastic objects and broken bricks.. plants like to wrap their roots around things which also serves as oxygen pockets.
I would suggest avoiding plastic matter but otherwise totally agree with your post.
Lol whenever I’m filling up a new raised bed, I remind my friends this is the perfect place to hide the bodies.
Like That Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode.
Organic fertilizer 🤔
@@danielson2454 very much non-organic
Wow thanks FBI
@@AG-oe2wt you do realize it’s a joke, right?🤣
Just built 2-8x4 beds . I put mesh cloth on bottom first, to keep voles out. People in gopher areas do this too. Cardboard at bottom, then logs, shredded wood to fill in between, leaves, emptied my compost pile into it, and got a load of OMRI soil. (Your Mels mix basically). Filled em up. And they are spouting already. This is a great method for Florida, I believe. The dirt here is pretty much sand. And we have dry winters. So with summer rains. I’m hoping the bottom volume stays moist. I love this method.
What I like about your garden is that it takes up room that would normally be lawn which you would have to mow the grass.
Love this. Down here in Texas we use stock tanks for raised beds. Maybe not as fancy looking, but definitely much less expensive than any I’ve seen on all the online sites. As for filling them up, glad to learn what we’ve been doing is the recommended way. Thanks. 😊
So I found his planters ( the one he showed) to be the same cost as the ones he showed but much larger and modular. Just got mine, check it out
How do you keep fire ants out of your raised beds? I'm in the Hill Country. Those little bastards are everywhere.
That is a great idea for urban gardeners, Kevin. I suspect the bottom carbon rich layer will become a water retention reservoir that may cause the plants to grow their roots a bit deeper than they are used to
Thank you Siloé - yeah, I'm curious to see myself! Hope you are well and great to hear from you
At the bottom of every container, or raised bed, I use a few inches of clay pellets. The same type that people use for aquaponics. Allows for better drainage. Sand on top of that. Along with the twigs, branches, leaves, and organic matter, I scoop on worm castings and worms to process it all.
Awesome raised bed gardening tips! We are just now clearing out the leaf coverings from our beds. Can't wait to get into that soil! Very glad to meet you. Just happily cultivated all of the positive buttons. Hope you are having a fantastic day ♡
You can do it!
I'm so glad I was able to come across this video. I just spent a little over $100 for top soil and potting mix; and still seems like that wasn't enough. That was my garden budget! I do have lots of grass clippings and cut up branches that I needed to do something with (spouse will be happy to see that gone). Thank you for the knowledgeable and well spoken information.
Additional information for filling your raised beds:
For beds >18" tall, you can fill bottom 50% with any type of organic fill material (logs, sticks, grass clippings, twigs, unfinished compost, etc. Then, fill the top 6-12" with a high quality mix of your choosing (see below). To save the most money, use larger volume organic matter like the logs, sticks, etc. and use stuff on your property.
Soil Mixes:
- Espoma Organic Raised Bed Mix: www.espoma.com/where-to-buy/
- Mel's Mix: 1/3 compost, 1/3 peat moss, 1/3 vermiculite
- Joe Lamp'ls Mix: 50% topsoil, 25% compost, 25% other organic matter
Tall Raised Beds: shop.epicgardening.com/products/tall-6-in-1-metal-raised-garden-bed
This is basically how I've been doing my mounds or raised beds, Thank You Kevin!
I love those culvert-looking beds you have! ....Just checked your link: they are out of stock! (which seems to be the trend in every garden center/shop right now, smh!
@@wchiwinky Hop on the email list, I'm getting more soon and opening preorders :)
Would redwood tree limbs be too acidic for most plants?
I dont know if you have a video explaining the following: how can I cut back on watering so much? The air here is very dry, do these planters need to have drain holes because the amount I have to water is not only expensive but is rinsing all nutrients out of the soil.
@@waterdragon5418 from what I understand the organic matter at the bottom and the mulching at the top it's going to really help conserve your water. They are bottomless oh, yes but there is an advantage to that as well. Hopefully epic gardening will answer your question better than I can 🙂
Same idea for my 6 meter X 1.2 meter bed. I used an old pine tree cut into rounds & backfilled with hardwood woodchips delivered for free. Here in Australia it is very hard wood but I found it started breaking down slowly over the next year & needed topping up after each crop with compost. A good thing is that it holds a lot of moisture & reduces how much I need to water. Important here with our high temps in summer. Works really well. After 2 years now when I dig down it is great looking black loamy soil that grows anything.
You can also add a layer of sand or even pebbles at the very bottom of your raised bed for drainage, as well as take up volume so you don't have to use so much compost. Rotted tree limbs and such are generally very easy to find along the road side in most areas or at a creek bed or such. I am assuming that you do have drain holes in the bottoms of your raised metal garden containers. Nice video and information.
Rocks and pebbles in a raised bed? Nah. That can lead to root rot because the water isn't draining properly
Thanks for your video. I bottom fill taller raised beds with straw bales with vertically oriented stems. The bales decomposed into a wonderful blend after the third season. Stay safe, enjoying your gardens while staying quarantined away from the coved-19 virus. Cheers
Great idea!
I’ve seen this as a hugelkulture variant but hadn’t thought about it in this context.
Kevin I emailed you about this very subject, thanks for addressing it in a video. I found a video from a old Penn state cement block raised bed garden where she uses hay/straw bales. We got 2 for each bed and they fit perfectly in the large Birdie beds (which I love). Filled the rest with the soil /compost mix and just planted my cool weather veggies
Very cool, glad this worked!
Here two years later - after buying 6 birdies beds from you! I need a super cheap way to fill. The soil in my area is really bad (had it tested) and working on amending that area in the mean time. thanks Kevin!
depending on what you use and grow you can go higher with the filler. In one bed I actually had sticks and twigs and leaves just bellow the surface and it caused no problems. Some plants even seem to like this. Not recommended for most root crops though or not at least until it breaks down more.
Thanks for a great video
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You can get free mushroom compost at mushroom farms. Chip drop is free wood chips delivered from arborists. Perlite and vermiculite are pretty cheap. Peat moss is not sustainable, coco coir is an alternative but both introduce fungus gnats, especially indoors. Kratky is something to check out too. Happy gardening!
We built 6 raised beds and underestimated the cost of filling them 😂 the growing season for us is almost over anyway so I may start a compost pile for the next season.
Kevin, The Espoma raised bed mix is 29.50 for 1.5 CFT. I can get an Organic Garden mix from a local company which is 38 bucks for a cubic yard , it’s a 50 50 mix of screened topsoil and screened organic leaf compost. I have 5 , 4x8 beds to fill which are 15 inches deep, I am using your method and grabbing branches etc and filling the bottom half, thanks for the info
I started with Mark then Charles Dowding. I’m glad to see I’m not the only one learning from them.
They're masters
I love both of them too!
Apollo SOL Mark in Queensland Australia is great 👍
Love Mark & Charles. 👍🏻🥰
Working on building a large garden for next growing season. Had a taste in my 1 raised bed but lacked the space until now. Have a 4x8 foot bed, 3x8, and four 3x6. Filled with layer of cardboard, twigs, other paper things, yard waste, leaves, and mixed horse manure compost. Will mulch with leaves and more cardboard for winter! So excited to grow.
Well done ! Very well explained with great advice on using the logs, twigs and veg trimmings 👍🏼👍🏼 Try to avoid using peat here to preserve our remains peat bogs. All the best from Ireland, Hugh 😊👍🏼🌿
Guessing you don’t have a lot of rice production in Ireland, but it is a local (CA, left coast) waste product turned beneficial alternative soil amendment. Wish more people would promote it and save your bogs.
Agreed, please don’t use peat!
We just bought some big pots for decoration and I am glad I saw this before I put some of my good stuff in it. We've got a lot of sticks and logs that will work fine.
I can't believe you posted this 45 mins ago. Just right in time, thank you so much!!
Got you covered!
Folks have used this for years - infact it's what's behind the straw bales idea as raise bed. I prefer what call my way - a reverse raised bed.
However, everyone has a twist on what's right for them.
Thanks for your time and consideration in helping others.
I've got my compost from Sacramento county. And it's up to 5 yards free for local resident.
I did one of my 24” raised beds exactly the way you are describing. I let it sit for a few days then I set it up foot planting. It has been just over 2 months and it has dropped 3 or 4 inches. We will see how it does with veggies. Great idea.
Yeah, now you've got some nice settling and you can top dress!
Brilliant video. We’ve just bought exactly that type of raised bed in the UK. Your video was informative and has given me confidence on how to fill it properly and economically. Thank you!
You two are my favorite gardening channels on TH-cam! you and "G'day! I'm Mark from Self Sufficient Me!". I was like "YEAH!" when you gave him a shoutout! I also watch Justin Rhodes and his family. You guys are making TH-cam Great Again.
Mark is the BEST!
@@epicgardening You should go do a collab with him after the worldwide lockdown. That's gonna be EPIC! GARDENING!
Yrs ago I learned a trick for taking up space in lg containers which is to literally throw in pages of newspaper, chunks of cardboard, organic filling like leaves about halfway up, then fill with soil, the filling breaks down in the soil and feeds it. It works very well. BTW those metal containers are $199 each.....ouch
OUCH !!!! I CAN MAKE THEM IN STEAD
Mary Mande how?
@@mimimo59 Metal fabrication
199 my god thats maybe 3 dollars of metal and 2 dollars of screws talk about a crazy markup.
Just use metal or aluminum roofing and some 4x6 and make it yourself.
I love the style in which you explain things and make it easy for anyone to pick it up. Great work. Love the channel.
Awesome! Thank you!
I've used this method in the past without knowing that it had a name.
I started just six inch raised beds this way with good results
@@jeepwran My great aunt and uncle had raised beds (which converted to cold frames in the winter) that he made. They were wonderful! They were about 10 inches deep, but were on waist-high legs. If I ever have property on which to make such things, I want to use their set-up as my model!
I fill mine half full of logs, then hay and pockets of compost to start the plants off. Works well and the logs act as a reservoir.
Great video, I do the same kind of things with my raised beds, it's so brilliant. The only things that bother me more and more these days are those plastic bags that the soil comes in... They end up in land fill ie buried in the earth or being burned in Malaysia.. I dump so many plastic bags, I really want other options..
Check out bulk soil suppliers in your area. I get 18 of those 1.5 cubic foot bags worth for $30-$50. I’ve even seen people without a trailer have it dumped on a tar and shoveled into plastic totes to go in the back of and suv. Home Depot and others also rent pickups cheap.
The plastic bags can become liners in cardboard boxes to create mini raised beds.
I use fabric pots for my no till beds so that you can ensure that they can get full air flow to the entirety of the root system
Yeah those are fantastic
You can turn upside down plastic flower pots to take up space.
Yep, done this in large containers for flowering annuals
It is slightly missing the point. This is the long term solution. The organic matter and cardboard turn into soil and useful fungi and earthworms love it. A cheap way to grow your own soil while growing crops.
@@Iloathsnow That's true, but I don't see any reason why someone couldn't do both things at once.
Many plastics degrade over time and can leach toxic chemical into your soil. Consider clay pots?
@@adenbuford7396 clay ia great! I always put clayshards in my pots and claypots in biggee cobtainers. Great for distributing water
You can also recycle glass bottles (a lot of people are drinking more with this shut in) even gallon jugs, along with large organic filler. Fill it to where you want then cover the top with cardboard boxes lain flat on top. Now fill the rest with the potting mix of your choosing.
Very true
I filled the bottom six inches of my 24" raised beds with the low quality clay soils I had to get rid of in my yard on my first couple of raised beds, but the next six I've done exactly as you suggest. The big mistake I made was with the first two beds that were put in close to a young peach tree and I'd never even thought to put weed matting on the bottom. Five years later, peach tree is 10 feet tall and both these raised beds have been choked out by the roots of that tree sucking the life out of all the vegies in them. All I can do is dig out all that soil and lay down weed mat hoping it will do the job and start again!
Oh no! Hope that works
I use cardboard, which works great (you have to save big pieces if possible)
@@wchiwinky Thanks for the suggestion. I've got plenty of cardboard around so will try using that combined with the best quality weed matting I can get hold of.
In areas where there are a lot of weeds I use three layers of cardboard, then straw, then branches, then soil mix. In my work area I used old carpet covered with straw. Went over two years before a few weeds showed in the carpet area.
Phil De Punter. It happened to me last year. I put 3 raised beds under my Mango tree and even with that black tarp, the tree roots went through! Hope you have better luck. I moved mine. Be safe ❤️😁👍
They throw away dryers in my apartment complex all the time.... and for some reason the inner drum is commonly out sitting Next to the machine.... I took one and it makes a perfect raised be (with drainage holes!) I’m not sure how hard or easy it is to take out the drum your self but it’s an idea and also there are also probably places that have all the washers getting thrown away I don’t know where but my apartment complex is one place LOL
Thank you for this video! I love it!!!😉
Though I love the idea of Charles Dowding’s No Dig concept, I much prefer the extra tall bed method I learned from Mark at Self Sufficient Me as you’ve mentioned! So easy on the back & convenient that I’m more likely to get out & garden! 😆
How neat that you got to actually work with Mel! And thank you for the tips
You can even throw old moldy hay in these beds and it will add nitrogen to the soil and help maintain moisture and insulation to the soil so roots stay warmer
Oh yeah that works SO well
I'm even more cheap, I go sticks & mulch for the bottom layer, then about an 8 inch layer of Garden Soil mixed with kitchen scrap compost for nutrients, and only a 6 inch layer of potting soil mix at the top. I also find the best deal on soil is Miracle Gro at Walmart. Been doing it this way for a while, it's cheap and everything grows like kings.
Love your channel and have learned so much from it.
That being said, peat bogs are being destroyed by the harvesting of peat moss and take decades to restore. While it’s not the topic of the video, it becomes a silent endorsement of the devastating practice. Please create a video on the alternatives and refer to it in all such situations.
We’re in the process of filling some really large raised planters and used rice hill compost. Rice hulls are the waste product from harvesting rice and used to be burned, so doubly beneficial to use them as a soil amendment.
Thank you for this! We’re starting our first outdoor garden and I’m a complete newbie. Your videos are very informative which I love
Use dry logs and sticks then wood chips then dirt on top
Got 8 of my 9 Birdies beds delivered through you. Thanks for the video, I have lots of logs and Cedar mulch to fill them up with 60%. Getting close to having my garden completed.
Incredible, Ed! I have to ask..what happened to the 9th?!
@@epicgardening it’s on its way!
It arrived today. Tomorrow will be assembly day.
@@epicgardening Kevin, after receiving my 9 th Birdie bed today, I was totally caught off guard by your thank you letter and seeds. You guys have been great! Looking forward to doing more business with you in the future!
starts at 3:45 :))
Thanks for this (and all your other) videos. I'm a new gardener with bad knees. I'm thrilled to see a raised bed assembled at this height.
Glad it was helpful!
My raised beds were always filled with kitchen scraps and paper on the bottom, they will decompost by the time the roots reach them.
What do u do to keep varmints out of ur compost?
@@michelledleal luckily we dont have those on the philippines :)
🌷 Wow, great information Mr. ‘Epic Gardening’! Thank you! And so many great comments also! Where I live, there must be 50 gophers to every man, woman & child! (only a little bit of exaggeration here :-) So I absolutely must put a connected mesh or small-hole chicken fencing at the bottom. I’ve tried everything to be rid of them, from cat poop into the hole (that helps a bit) to traps- nothing really worked. A neighbor suggested I sit by the gopher hole with a beer and a shotgun! I didn’t think getting the gophers drunk would help much 😁 Sooo it’s raised beds for me! My best to all 💚🪴
Definitely filling it with 1/3 Compoost, cuz I love Compoost. I mean, who doesn't love Compoost. Compoost is my favorite.
;)
Thank you so much! Mel’s Mix was so expensive for us. It’s too late for our garden, but we need alternatives if we want to expand.
I had a good giggle at the 3:00 mark. Compoost🤣🤣
I’ve used sawdust and wood ashes to fill in the bottom of a tall planter. I have also used empty plastic bottles to take up some of the space.
those raised beds are pretty!
I think so too!
We use a corner of the yard to. Toss our twigs in then haul them off once a year. We have a farm a few miles away with extra water troughs they aren't as shiny as these but i know ours will work. Great idea.
This channel and self sufficient me are my favorite garden channels very informative. It would be awesome to see you guys do a colab video
We did one in the past, but we're going to do another!
@@epicgardening 😮 I didn't even know what a wanker
Hollis and Nancy is awesome too...so is the Rusted Gardener and project diaries
Charles Dowding is also great.
@@JNYC-gb1pp it's so great to get a variety of ideas and info from different sources.
I love Mark from SS Me! That's actually how I found your channel and learned about the Birdies! I'm excited to start Veg gardening!
I love those beds, I’m 5”3 🤔may be perfect for my tall height 😉 you have an Epic garden Kevin❤️😘
Thanks! Yes they're great!
Noooo comment!!! 😳
I followed this plan in my new backyard raised bed this year! I filled the lower half with old soil from all my flower pots before replanting them with new potting soil. Also threw in homemade unfinished compost. It saved me the cost of two bags of raised bed mix! Also, I have a tip: Here in Michigan, the ACE Hardware stores always discount organic raised bed mix by 50 percent in early April, so I bought my bags a month before I even had a new raised bed, knowing I would have one soon enough. So my tip is to watch local ads for sales on soil very early in the spring. Totally worth it!
This is a hard time of year - waiting for weather to be right to put all seedlings out! I know if i do it too soon all my weeks of hard work will be wasted if they all die of cold shock.
Thank you! Great information! I am in Missouri and most people need raised beds because it's so rocky.
You and Mark are two of my top favorites!
How about just buying the shorter containers and elevating them on something like cinder blocks?
Bigger soil volume maybe more stable ecosystem. Not that he mentions anything related to that.
This method helps maintain moisture levels in the bed as well as giving some additional fertility. Also, building beds with solid bottoms that could hold a good amount of soil would take a lot of work, time, materials and would likely perform worse and require more maintenance.
These beds don't have bottoms on them.
Something about the spelling of compost into comPOOst at 3:05 nearly made me spit my coffee out laughing. Thank you Kevin. For everything you do for us LOL much love
No to peat moss. Might as well put a torch to the planet. Hugelkultur is great and I’ve used a variation of this on my raised beds very early on. Also have two compost bins and use cocopeat for fibre along with top soil, perlite etc.
I don't know much about gardening, so this comment sounds snooty to me. You could bother to explain yourself.
@@frogsnack7072 peat moss has a lot of controversy around it. It is unsustainable and damaging ecologically to get it. But home garden usage counts for an extremely low % of the overall picture since it is used more commercially or in industry.
I have the old school idea. I fill the bottom of my larger containers by using old plastic bottoms from my recycle bin. This fills space and aids drainage.. saves tons of money and saves water which is safely stored in the base of the container
5:12 LOL no sir I saw that very clearly 😂😂
I learned that very thing with filling the beds from dirtpatchheaven! thanks! your beds are very attractive and a great use of urban yard.
So nice of you!
I tilled up my yard a few times this month and took half a wheel barrel of top soil from my yard and mixed it with 1/3 bag of Fox Farms potting soil to fill my grow bags. $130 to fill 100+ ten Gallon grow bags
I was considering "that German word thing" (they have words for everything) but here in Florida it would be a subterranean termite magnate. It would be great to compost the logs but when they swarmed I'd have everyone on the block after me.
Ah yeah that could be an issue!
hugelkultur
Thank you so much for this - A very practical method to fill up a raise bed. I'm enjoying watching your videos; learned a lot. I'm from the Philippines.
Use cheap fill dirt available at your local nursery mixed with leaves, grass clippings, twigs, etc. Then top off with the good stuff. Also, avoid hardwoods like oak, cypress...they take longer to decompose
@Matthew Cooper why?
My boy from the land down under mark is the man these two guys are the man great job in bring it out
You always give the best info! In a couple months I will retire from teaching middle school math after 30 years. My husband is building three tall garden beds as a gift, so I am grateful for this video. I am wondering about the Peet moss; isn’t it bad for the environment? Do you have other options ?
Definitely find peat alternatives. We use rice hill compost. It used to be a waste product but is also a great soil amendment. Hope your gardens are doing well. Another former math teacher; jh&sh.
We built some truly massive raised beds and used a bunch of tree mulch from local tree services for free. Tilled that up with a ton of rabbit manure from a local rabbit farmer. Check out our channel!
We’re in the process of filling 270 cubic feet of planters. Used a combination of scrap wood, horse manure, leaf litter, rice hill compost, and trailers of bulk soil. $200.
This is exactly how I filled my two 8'x4'x12" and one 4'x12'x12" beds last year plus some new whiskey barrels and troughs this year. Logs, sticks last years dead peppers, ect... in the bottom. Top soil mixed with cocoa coir, peat, aged manure, composted leaves and fresh compost on top. I had a great garden last year. Tripling it this year and doing it much the same again. At the very bottom a layer of cardboard and mesh to keep out animals and weeds. It has so many earthworms this year its incredible.
yeah it's really hard to beat this method.
I sincerely hope anyone should check how the PEAT MOSS they will be using was harvested.
There's quite a bit about peat moss that's worth its own video
Great video......Like doing it on the cheap side....next year a few raised beds for me for my Dad so he does not have to bend over to tinker in the garden at 78 years old....Keep up the good work Kevin!
Love it, tall beds are perfect for the elderly!
Hey Epic. I have heard from another channel that too much wood products in your soil will take nitrogen to decompose - and that this will detract from the nitrogen available for your plants. Would this be the case in placing logs and sticks etc as filler at the bottom of your containers? Or is the whole point that the root system will never reach down there?
Apparently it’s good practice to add some blood and bone or alfalfa, or other high nitrogen material into the bottom layers for that reason. Think of it as feeding two different things: the veggies you’re growing on top, and the beasties you’re growing on the bottom.
Hugelkulture is a really well established and productive approach to gardening so it doesn’t seem like it would be a problem.
Alternatively, I believe one of the challenges with using manure is the high nitrogen so adding that in the lower layer would help both ways. That’s what we did in our raised beds.
I’m trying out a wicking bed this year with gallon milk bottles 2 holes near the top( either side), two holes in the bottom. If it rains a lot some of the water will go into the bottles and wick back out as the soil dries. I saw a couple of videos on doing this different ways, we’ll see how this works. Also did the limbs and other compost on the bottom and good soil mix on the top for my flower beds. It will be a live and learn year !
how did this method work? was it as successful as you thought it would be?
Can you please tell me where you got your cool looking metal veggie beds from and how much the taller one cost? Thank You:)
he sells them on his website
Hey this is more a specific thing for you; the Miramar Landfill lets San Diego residents come in and take as much compost as you want for free. Like they have fourty foot industrial mounds of the stuff and you can just load up. All you need is an ID saying you are an SD resident.
I’m definetly not a gardner, so I have a question. Why not place a 15” raised bed ON TOP of a table? Please don’t laugh at me.
Elva, some people do that. You will have to deal with the drainage issue. Where will the water run to? Onto the table and sliding off onto the ground? Will your table rot with the water that will drain out of the raised bed? Also, there must be a way for the water to freely drain out of the raised bed. If the water can't drain away freely, the soil at the bottom of the raised bed will become wet and compacted and the plants will suffer.
It's valid, drainage / weight of soil is only issue
Hollis and Nancy (youtube homesteaders - awesome channel also) have all their planters on kind of 'benches' so its all off the ground to avoid certain insects and slugs - with a back support to affix to avoid them being blown over by the wind. He has a video where he shows you how he builds/plans it all. I think he does this mostly with leafy veggies to keep them insect and soil free and ready for eatin'. I think he calls it the 'salad bar'! ;)
You can absolutely do something like that. In fact, many people use herb gardens that are no more than 12 inches deep but have legs on them to bring them to a more comfortable level. Also, you must keep in mind that the bottom will need drainage holes and will eventually rot and collapse.
At nursing homes, they have planters on wooden garden tables so ppl in wheelchairs can pot & water plants. But they have maintenance men and a budget for outside tables.
I had a 4 by 8 raised flower and vegetable bed. About 2 and a half to 3 feet tall. I filled it first with 2 to 3 bags of pet bedding then I used 4 bags of miracle grow potting soil. It was very nice. Had it for ten years but it was made out treated wood logs and I painted it which caused rain to cause it to rot inside. So it lasted only ten years.
Never filled raised beds with logs, but will be doing so this year as we have a "new home" wit trees that needed to be removed. What we have done in the past fo raised beds is use wood chips which are easier to move as we have matured. Also put a layer in the bottom of our larger pots, never had a problem with them taking nutrients from the plants and have had to water less during the heat of the summer.
Fantastic methods