I've been meaning to turn a good portion of the back yard into a garden for food and food-related plants (herbs) since I moved in..... 4 years ago.
So, really plan on doing it over the winter for next year so I can plant in the spring.
I'm mostly planning "easy" plants: Zuchinni, squashes, onions, carrots, potatoes, broccoli, peas, maybe cucumbers etc.
The question, though, is what's the best way to like, do a raised bed?
Google has helpfully offered up what looks like a non-stop barrage of AI generated nonsense, but I'm figuring some sort of cement blocks for the corners and some un-treated boring white pine (or whatever's cheapest at the local lumber yard) wood for the sides.
The questions are, I guess, is what exactly is the correct thing to buy to fill these since I'm planning on making something like 4 or 5 large raised beds and like, what extremely obvious things am I overlooking that'll result in this being less success and more of a typical my-project-failed?
I bought some corrugated metal beds and I've liked them for the couple of years I've had them.
The biggest lesson learned is that 4ft is too far to reach comfortably. I put a trellis arch between two of them and they are too deep to really reach the middle.
Mine are 3 ft deep. I filled them with logs and sticks and then added triple mix. A few years in they are pretty compacted, I will need to get a lot more compost in them. I am experimenting with adding straw for bulk.
Uh, thanks for that. I was absolutely looking at 4ft beds, and now that you mention it, that's kinda obviously far far too deep for my stubby little t-rex arms to deal with.
I found a local place that provides cow shit by the ton (some benefits of living in Texas I guess?) that's willing to do smaller loads, so I think I'm going to DIY my own dirt with the local top soil and a load of cow poop.
I hope this isn't unwelcome advice, but this is a vegan gardening community:
I practice veganic gardening (as much as is possible - I'm sure my triple mix had some animal manure in it) so I don't have direct experience with using manure in my beds. I do want to flag that mixing top soil with manure has a few potential downsides:
If you google raised bed soil recipe or something like that, you will find ideal ratios for different components that will allow good draining and aeration.
Not at all and I missed the vegan bit or I'd have not mentioned it, so that's my bad.
My problem is I live somewhere that essentially does not have top soil (the clay is, if you're lucky, maybe an inch down) and I'm going to have to start from utter scratch, and the internet is uh, rife? with animal-based solutions.
I'm going to have to import something, and then do something to whatever I get, since from what I can tell I'm not exactly going to get anything remotely resembling decent soil purchasing a truck full of it.
Think about adding something like vermiculite or coco coir for fluffing up the heavy clay soil.
This is outside of my raised beds: My soil is really compacted clay as well. Plants don't build deep roots and the soil gets super water logged. I am working with straw and my own compost to kind of add some organics. I'm also using deep layers of wood chips that will eventually break down.