Spring greetings!

I am looking for suggestions about how to amend the soil in raised bed
boxes. These are tall ones - 15 inches high - and I've been using them for
four years. What I essentially have is huge, unmovable window boxes with
ten cubic yards of soil in them. Things have grown less and less vigorously
over the four years, although anything that stays in the ground long enough
does great once it reaches the native soil below (longest parsnips you've
ever seen!).

I use initial fertilizer at planting/sowing time, and feed throughout the
season, but what's the most effective thing to do now for the coming season?

I'm in Portland, Oregon - wet winters and cool springs. Last average frost
date is May 10, but we've hardly had a frost this year.

Many thanks for any and all suggestions.

Marcia

If you can work in a goodly amount of compost to at least one shovel
depth. After that you can mulch your plants with compost or other
organic matter and it will eventually rot down into the soil. Do you
have earthworms in your raised beds? If you don't it's a good indicator
that there is not enough organic material in them. We also "pothole" our
kitchen garbage, all vegetable matter, no bones or meat. Potholing
consists of digging a hole each time you have a container of kitchen
stuff, dumping in the stuff, cover it up. It starts to decay and the
earthworms and other earth critters move in and help to digest it and
turn it into good compost.

George

Marcia Marvin wrote:

Spring greetings!

I am looking for suggestions about how to amend the soil in raised bed
boxes. These are tall ones - 15 inches high - and I've been using them for
four years. What I essentially have is huge, unmovable window boxes with
ten cubic yards of soil in them. Things have grown less and less vigorously
over the four years, although anything that stays in the ground long enough
does great once it reaches the native soil below (longest parsnips you've
ever seen!).

I use initial fertilizer at planting/sowing time, and feed throughout the
season, but what's the most effective thing to do now for the coming season?

I'm in Portland, Oregon - wet winters and cool springs. Last average frost
date is May 10, but we've hardly had a frost this year.

Many thanks for any and all suggestions.

Marcia

I have 24" boxes (2ft tall, 4 ft wide, 20ft long) that I placed over
trenches that had been backfilled with baled hay. As the hay decomposes,
the soil above subsides and remains loose. It also sinks below the rim of
the box and I replace its volume with compost. I went out a couple days ago
to pull some mulch off my garlic and nearly everywhere I looked, there were
earthworms already

I planted my garlic by putting a layer of compost on top of the soil,
embedding the garlic bulbs in that and then covering with a thick layer of
compost and a final layer of shredded tree leaves. I followed much the same
technique with some lame-looking onion bulbs that didn't get much size last
summer. They were too small to fool with in the kitchen so I decided to see
if they would grow to a decent size if given another chance. Maybe they
will, maybe they won't. Nothing lost either way.

I don't know that this will help you out, but perhaps it might give you some
ideas for future beds.

Bill
^^^^ signed

Marcia Marvin wrote:

Spring greetings!

I am looking for suggestions about how to amend the soil in raised bed
boxes. These are tall ones - 15 inches high - and I've been using them
for
four years. What I essentially have is huge, unmovable window boxes with
ten cubic yards of soil in them. Things have grown less and less
vigorously over the four years, although anything that stays in the ground
long enough does great once it reaches the native soil below (longest
parsnips you've ever seen!).

I use initial fertilizer at planting/sowing time, and feed throughout the
season, but what's the most effective thing to do now for the coming
season?

I'm in Portland, Oregon - wet winters and cool springs. Last average
frost date is May 10, but we've hardly had a frost this year.

Many thanks for any and all suggestions.

Marcia


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