How to prepare for good soil in raised garden for next year?
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Mix in some peat moss and compost.
If you fill the planter with store bought planting or potting soil, that will suffice. You could bury compost in them from the kitchen for added nutrients or rake the top layer to catch and hold rain water as plowed fields lay fallow all winter. Basically be sure you have good ph soil and be ready to add what it needs. We use Miracle grow in our soil depending on if we have flowers, bushes, or veggies which type we buy. Hope this helps what you need.
Keep in mind: The soil in the raised bed needs not be the actual depth of soils you have.
As that is so, You should want to get to cutting out your soil to a depth long before the late fall freeze. This depth relies on what you plan on growing in your raised bed.
Some people put in a 5 square foot bed that is 5 inches tall and expect a Huge Harvest...from 6 to 10 bags of Mulch.
Don't happen that way.
We all Wish it did, but it don't.
In general: the gallons of fruit and vegetables many expect to get and preserve is usually dramatically less than the gallons of topsoil you can factually put in the raised bed.
And as it is so that:
1. A Plant never outgrows the pot in which it places
2. Fruit never outweighs the manure you place
You really do need to maintain that depth is way beyond the depth of the Raised Bed just like a very deep root, in a very deep pot.
Granted you aren't planting trees, but...
You can't pull out all your tomato plants to fertilize beneath the dying roots next July is what I am saying.
I mean, well, yeah you can, (pull them all out next july), but who really wants to? Just to have mostly all of them die of a malnourishment anyhow? BTDT: Dave, Age 13.
The best way to avoid any under-nourishment problem is to construct the Raised Garden in the Winter to place it on top of a preestablished Bed of Manure that is:
A. Much Deeper than the Raised Garden itself.
B. Well watered by the brisk Wintertime Snowfalls and the Spring Rains.
C. Ready for an Early Start with Plants that you get Started Indoors by Late February, (even if you need to save 10 Mini Cupcake Containers from October on) for planting in Early May to Late April.
D. A Good place to bury your Last Grass and Bush Clippings before October 30, your Halloween Pumpkin by or before November 5, and any potato and carrot peels you get year round.
E. A great place to secure that any Bad Vegetable Wastes Pay at least Triple their weight in your food Losses for themself in the Next Year.
Good luck with your Garden Adventure!
I add compost in the fall to my raised garden beds, then again in the spring. A cover crop can also help. This is a crop you sow in the fall that grows throughout the winter. In the spring, you just dig it back into the bed and it decomposes into nutrients for the soil.