Hi All,

Over the weekend I built a raised garden bed using red gum sleeps bolted to
posts also made of red gum.. It's approximatley 4.8m wide, 2.4 metres deep
and 200mm high.

My block is mainly clay soil. Very hard to work with. The grass is couch and
reminds me of a book called Day Of The Triffids. That stuff is a menace. I
used round-up to kill the grass in and around the raised bed.

I want to fill the raised garden bed with a good loam soil but not sure if I
should by a grade of soil for the bottom and a better grade for the top.
What sort should I buy? Also, how do I stop the roots of the couch invading
the plot? My idea is to lay something around the perimetre of the raised bed
but not sure what. Any ideas would be most welcome.

Kind Regards, Rick.

Rick B wrote:
Any ideas would be most welcome.

We have similar raised garden beds, but not as large because I would
have to walk all over them if they were any larger.

I would just go with good quality loam. You probably won't save that
much anyway.

And it is all going to sink and settle and that poor quality crap goes
rock hard.

I'm a comfrey planter to help convert poor soil to good soil, but it
does take time and some people have trouble getting rid of it again.


We lined our beds with heavy layers of newspaper, which lasted for about
24 months, then the kikuyu breached it, but a paint with roundup fixes
that. I don't want the chemicals, but I'm not in a mood to continually
weed it out. The latest one we lined with piles of black plastic
(because we had it). So far so good (12 months).


Have you considered getting a truck load of river sand and hiring a
rotary hoe for your heavy clay. Especially if you are going to produce
great piles of compost. Actually, just rotary hoe in anything organic
you can lay your hands on rather than going through the labour of
composting.

g'day rick,

basically all i've ever used in my raised beds is mushroom compost, i
add where i can any organic materila that will break down on the
bottom first, after the newspaper that is. then lay the mushy compost
in and cover with a good layer of mulch hay or the like. you can add
manures as you build the bed.

create pathways around the beds as weed barrier, you can use anything
on top of newspaper eg.,. 20mm stone or sawdust whatever is readily
available.

couch like any other weed has a very hard time getting a foothold in a
well mulched garden bed.

anysoil you bring in will be very low in organic matter so you will
need to be digging some in, unless you buy a garden soil mix, i tried
the mix but found i got better results with the mush' compost.

len

snipped
--
happy gardening
'it works for me it could work for you,'

"in the end ya' gotta do what ya' gotta do" but consider others and the environment
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On Tue, 02 Nov 2004 04:03:09 +1000, len gardener
wrote:

g'day rick,

basically all i've ever used in my raised beds is mushroom compost, i
add where i can any organic materila that will break down on the
bottom first, after the newspaper that is. then lay the mushy compost
in and cover with a good layer of mulch hay or the like. you can add
manures as you build the bed.

I'm going to second what Len said. I've tried buying soil for raised
garden beds and I've used mushroom compost, and the mushroom compost
is vastly superior. I find most commerical loam mixes too sandy and
not fertile enough for veggies.

I have also had good success with burying my vegetable kitchen waste
in the garden rather than composting it (this is known as composting
in situ), with great results in terms of soil fertility and plant
health.

Geodyne

g'day geodyne,

thank you for the support, i just like to keep it simple (KISS) huh
chuckle.

yes doing that thing with the vege scarps etc is a good permaculture
method of cutting down on work sort of like removing the middle man in
your garden regime hey.

i do that method all the time now as well and my worm farm is my
garden beds, great stuff. just never made sense to me that gardeners
would rather turn or tend a compost heap trying to oxygenate it and
keep it hot when there's a perfectly good coldie in the fridge and a
nice shady nook in the garden, ah the stress of it all.

take care

len

snipped
--
happy gardening
'it works for me it could work for you,'

"in the end ya' gotta do what ya' gotta do" but consider others and the environment
http://members.optusnet.com.au/~gardenlen1/

my e/mail addies have spam filters you should know what to delete before you send.

On Tue, 02 Nov 2004 10:27:35 +1000, len gardener
wrote:

i do that method all the time now as well and my worm farm is my
garden beds, great stuff. just never made sense to me that gardeners
would rather turn or tend a compost heap trying to oxygenate it and
keep it hot when there's a perfectly good coldie in the fridge and a
nice shady nook in the garden, ah the stress of it all.

You're calling me lazy? So be it - pass me a beer!

take care

You too.

Geodyne

Geodyne wrote:

You're calling me lazy? So be it - pass me a beer!

It is okay to be lazy, so long as you are not stupid too {:-).

Thanks for all the advice, guys. Can Mushroom Compost be bought in large
quanities? I've only seen it bagged at Bunnings. I guess there is a myriad
of materials I could use around the perimetre to stop the triffids.

....I can't wait to get stuck into it

"len gardener" wrote in message
...
g'day rick,

basically all i've ever used in my raised beds is mushroom compost, i
add where i can any organic materila that will break down on the
bottom first, after the newspaper that is. then lay the mushy compost
in and cover with a good layer of mulch hay or the like. you can add
manures as you build the bed.

create pathways around the beds as weed barrier, you can use anything
on top of newspaper eg.,. 20mm stone or sawdust whatever is readily
available.

couch like any other weed has a very hard time getting a foothold in a
well mulched garden bed.

anysoil you bring in will be very low in organic matter so you will
need to be digging some in, unless you buy a garden soil mix, i tried
the mix but found i got better results with the mush' compost.

len

snipped
--
happy gardening
'it works for me it could work for you,'

"in the end ya' gotta do what ya' gotta do" but consider others and the
environment
http://members.optusnet.com.au/~gardenlen1/

my e/mail addies have spam filters you should know what to delete before
you send.

On Tue, 02 Nov 2004 02:52:43 GMT, "Rick B" wrote:

Thanks for all the advice, guys. Can Mushroom Compost be bought in large
quanities? I've only seen it bagged at Bunnings. I guess there is a myriad
of materials I could use around the perimetre to stop the triffids.

Talk to your local nursery supplies place. They should be able to
supply it by the cubic metre or by the tonne. It's very popular these
days. Where are you located, Rick?

...I can't wait to get stuck into it

Raised gardens are a lot of fun. Don't forget to lay old carpet or
newspaper over any grass before putting the soil in.

You might like to think about laying a permanent path down the middle
of your bed to make reaching the plants in the centre easier. A lot of
people recommend it, but I am 5'1" and I've reached the centre of a
bed that width with no trouble before. The trick was to put a trellis
down the centre of the bed, and have three tiers of verticality using
the "square foot" gardening method - I had climbers in the middle two
rows, more vertical plants in the next rows out, and lower plants that
were cropped daily or so (like lettuce) in the outside rows.

I can give you a clearer explanation of that with ascii diagrams if
you'd like.

Geodyne

"Geodyne" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 02 Nov 2004 02:52:43 GMT, "Rick B" wrote:

Thanks for all the advice, guys. Can Mushroom Compost be bought in large
quanities? I've only seen it bagged at Bunnings. I guess there is a myriad
of materials I could use around the perimetre to stop the triffids.

Talk to your local nursery supplies place. They should be able to
supply it by the cubic metre or by the tonne. It's very popular these
days. Where are you located, Rick?

I am located in Melbourne. North Western suburbs. How much can I expect to
pay for a cubic metre?


...I can't wait to get stuck into it

Raised gardens are a lot of fun. Don't forget to lay old carpet or
newspaper over any grass before putting the soil in.

You might like to think about laying a permanent path down the middle
of your bed to make reaching the plants in the centre easier. A lot of
people recommend it, but I am 5'1" and I've reached the centre of a
bed that width with no trouble before. The trick was to put a trellis
down the centre of the bed, and have three tiers of verticality using
the "square foot" gardening method - I had climbers in the middle two
rows, more vertical plants in the next rows out, and lower plants that
were cropped daily or so (like lettuce) in the outside rows.

I can give you a clearer explanation of that with ascii diagrams if
you'd like.

Your explanation is very helpful and your method is a very good idea. Just
wished I started planting a week ago. It is bucketing down today!


Geodyne

On Tue, 02 Nov 2004 04:02:39 GMT, "Rick B" wrote:

I am located in Melbourne. North Western suburbs. How much can I expect to
pay for a cubic metre?

I can't speak for Melbourne, but my locals (in Sydney) charge around
$30-35/m3. There will be a few mushroom growers in your area, so
you'll probably pay about the same.

I once filled a garden your size to a depth of 4" with 1 tonne of
compost, so you're probably looking at 3-4 m3.

Geodyne

mate the only way to garden hey?

len

snipped
--
happy gardening
'it works for me it could work for you,'

"in the end ya' gotta do what ya' gotta do" but consider others and the environment
http://members.optusnet.com.au/~gardenlen1/

my e/mail addies have spam filters you should know what to delete before you send.

g'day rick,

i used to get mine by the truck load or trailer load when i lived in
the big smoke here in rural i can get it deliverd by about 60 bags per
load. check with your local nursery/landscape centre, or if you live
near a mushroom farm enquire about buying it from them.

the stuff in the city was near decomposed, the stuff from the farm is
fresher but matters little in the end.

len

snipped
--
happy gardening
'it works for me it could work for you,'

"in the end ya' gotta do what ya' gotta do" but consider others and the environment
http://members.optusnet.com.au/~gardenlen1/

my e/mail addies have spam filters you should know what to delete before you send.